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AN INTIMATE RECORD 






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PORTRAIT _OF A -YOUNGHGI 


Camondo Collection, Louvre Museum, Paris 








RENOIR 
AN INTIMATE RECORD 


BY AMBROISE VOLLARD 





AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION BY 
HAROLD L. VANDOREN AND RANDOLPH T. WEAVER 


eterna een nameene te meen mens mae ae neneminemurr | 





NEW YORK : ALFRED: A: KNOPF 
1925 















COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY ALFRED A. Kh 
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MANUFAOTURED IN 1 
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TRANSLATORS’ NOTE 


Because of the irregular order of the episodes in the 
ensuing pages, a brief outline chronology of the life of 
the artist has been given to clarify any confusion which 
might ensue from the author’s arrangement. In addi- 
tion, there will be found a very condensed list of his 
principal works. Some of the longer footnotes have 
likewise been relegated to the appendices, in order to 
interrupt the narrative as little as possible. Only those 
which are indispensable to the text have been preserved 
in situ. Titles of pictures have been occasionally left 
in French where translation was difficult. 

The translators wish to express their sincere thanks 
to Messrs. Jean and Pierre Renoir, sons of the painter, 
Georges Riviere, author of Renoir et ses Amis, and J. 
Durand-Ruel, for valuable assistance in compiling the 
appendices. 











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FOREWORD 


The book presented herewith is in no sense a formal 
biography. It has been composed of a_ thousand 
touches: interrupted conversations with Renoir about 
the events of his life and the tendencies of ancient and 
modern art; observations of the characteristic gestures 
of the painter; details of his family and his circle of 
friends. The author has also endeavoured to present 
certain figures in the world of art: the collector- 
speculators, the snobs of painting, the critics, the mod- 
ern Mecenases. 

The classification of a great number of notes and the 
co-ordination of many disparate elements have been no 
easy task. But it is hoped that the reader will find 
in this intimate record, told almost entirely by the 
artist himself, something more than a mere biography. 


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CONTENTS 


How I Mabe THE ACQUAINTANCE OF RENOIR 
THE BEGINNINGS 

THE GLEYRE STUDIO 

“MoTHER ANTHONY’S CABARET” 

La GRENOUILLERE 


DuRING THE War oF 1870 AND UNDER THE ComM- 
MUNE 


THE EXHIBITIONS OF THE IMPRESSIONISTS 
“SERIOUS” PURCHASERS 


THE CAFE GUERBOIS, THE NOUVELLE ATHENES, 
THE CAFE TORTONI 


THE SALON OF MADAME CHARPENTIER 
EARLY TRAVELS 

THE IMPRESSIONIST THEORIES 
Renoir’s Dry MANNER 

THE TRIP TO SPAIN 

Lonpon, HoLLtanp, MunNIcH 

RENOIR AT PONT-AVEN 

THE PorTRAIT OF MapDAME MorisoT 
THE FAMILY 

EssovEs, CAGNES 

THE MobDELs AND THE Malps 


15 
22 
30 
42 
49 


55 
61 
71 


81 

88 

99 
I11 
118 
126 
134 
140 
142 
146 
153 
159 


XX] 
XXII 
XXIII 
XXIV 
XXV 
XXVI 


CONTENTS 
RENOIR AND His PATRONS 
PoRTRAIT OF A GREAT COLLECTOR 
ReENoIR Paints My PortTRAIT 
LUNCHEON WITH RopIN 
ARTISTS OF FoRMER Days 
THE Last YEARS 


APPENDIX [ 


APPENDIX II 


172 
178 
189 
205 
215 
221 
227 
234 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG GIRL Frontispiece 
Lisa (1867) 18 
Lisa (1869) 26 
PorTRAIT OF CHOQUET (1876) 36 
La Moutin DE LA GALETTE (1875) 46 
MADAME CHARPENTIER AND HER CHILDREN (1878) 52 
LUNCHEON OF THE BoOATMEN AT BOUGIVAL (1881) 62 
THE SEINE AT ARGENTEUIL. (1873) 68 
BATTLEDORE AND SHUTTLECOCK (1889) 76 
MoTHER AND CHILD (1888) 86 
SKETCH FOR THE “BATHERS” OF 1885 94 
SLEEPING GIRL WITH A CaT (1880) 104 
THe UmpreELtas (1883) 116 
BATHER (1891) 128 
Boy Drawinc (1888) 138 
La BOHEMIENNE 146 
NursE AND CHILp (1903) 154 
STILL LIFE : 164 
_ STUDIES 176 
GIRL WITH A TAMBOURINE—Drawing 182 


THE APPLE VENDOR (1889) 190 


ILLUSTRATIONS 
NuDE 
PorTRAIT OF CoLONNA Romano (1913) 
SLEEPING BATHER 
Renorr IN His 78TH YEAR 
Tue Sprinc (1912) 


198 
206 
214 
218 
224 


CHRONOLOGY; 


1841. Born at Limoges, February 25. 

1845. Removal of family to Paris. 

1854. Apprenticed to a porcelain-decorator. 

1858. Enters the studio of Gleyre. 

1863. First picture exhibited at the Salon: Esmeralda. 

1864. Exhibits at the Salon des Refusés, having been re- 
jected at the Salon. 

1865-8. Frequent sojourns to the environs of the Forest of 
Fontainebleau: Marlotte, Chailly, Barbizon, etc. 
Meeting with Diaz. 

1870-1. Franco-Prussian war. Enlists in the 10th chasseurs 
a cheval. 

1871. Returns to Paris under the Commune. 

1873. Meeting with Durand-Ruel, the first dealer to put any 
faith in his work. 

1874. First exhibition of the Society of Painters, Sculptors 
and Gravers, later called the Impressionists. 

1876. Disastrous sale organized by the Impressionists at the 
suggestion of Renoir at the Hotel Druot. 

1877. Second exhibition of the Impressionists. (The 
Moulin de la Galette, The Swing and several other 
important canvases figured at this exhibition.) 

1879. Trip to Algeria. 

1880. Marriage. Trip to the Isle of Guernsey. 

1880-1. Voyage to Italy. 

1881. Second trip to Algeria. 

1884-90. Experiments in fresco colour and painting on ce- 

ment: called the “dry” manner. 


CHRONOLOGY, 


1890-3. Pont Aven. 


1892. 


1895. 
1899. 


1900. 


1907. 


1911. 
1919. 


Retrospective exhibition at Durand-Ruel’s, and be- 
ginning of the public acceptance of his work. 

Trip to Spain. 

First attack of rheumatism which was later to deprive 
him of the use of his limbs. 
Decorated with the Cross of the Legion of Honour. 
(Later made an officer and finally a commander.) 
Purchase of Les Collettes and final establishment at - 
Cagnes. (Previous to this, one year was spent at 
Cannet and three at Magagnosc.) 

Permanently confined to his wheel chair. 

Died at Cagnes, December 3. Renoir is buried at 
Essoyes. 


RENOIR 


AN INTIMATE RECORD 












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CHAPTER ONE 
HOW I MADE THE ACQUAINTANCE OF RENOIR 


I WANTED to know who had posed for a Manet in my 
possession. It was a canvas representing a man seated 
on a camp-stool in a pathway of the Bois de Boulogne, 
wearing a grey hat, a mauve jacket, a yellow vest, white 
trousers, and varnished pumps—and I nearly forgot to 
mention a rose in his buttonhole. I had been told that 
Renoir would know who it was, so | set out to look for 
him. I found that he was then living in an old house in 
Montmartre called The Chateau in the Mist. In the 
garden I found a housemaid, dressed in bohemian fash- 
ion; she told me to wait, and pointed to the hallway of 
the house. Just then a young woman appeared, who 
was as buxom and amiable as one of those pastels by 
Perroneau of some good lady of the time of Louis XV. 
It was Madame Renorr. 

“Oh, didn’t the maid ask you to come in? 
. . . Gabrielle!” 

The maid was taken aback by her mistress’s tone of 
rebuke. | 

“But it’s all muddy outside! And La Boulangére? 
forgot to put the mat back in front of the door!” 

Madame Renoir went to call her husband, leaving 


1“The Bakery Girl,” the nickname of one of Renoir’s servants. 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 
me in the dining-room, where | found the finest Renoirs 
I had yet seen on the walls. 

The painter soon came in. It was the first time 
that I had ever seen him. He was a spare man, sharp- 
eyed, and very nervous, giving one the impression that 
he never stood still. 

I explained the occasion of my visit. 

“Your man is Monsieur Brun, a friend of Manet’s,” 
he said. “But we can talk better upstairs. Will you 
come up to the studio?” 

Renoir showed me into the most commonplace sort 
of room. There were two or three badly matched pieces 
of furniture, a mass of coloured stuffs, and some straw 
hats, which the painter was apparently accustomed to 
crumple in his fingers while posing the models. Can- 
vases everywhere, stacked one against the other. Near 
the model’s chair I observed a pile of copies— 
their wrappers unbroken—of La Revue Blanche, an 
“advanced” magazine very popular'with the public. I 
remembered having read many a eulogy of Impression- 
ist art in its pages. 

“That is a very interesting magazine,’ I observed. 

“Yes, indeed,” Renoir replied. “My friend Natan- 
son sends it to me; but | must confess that I’ve never 
looked at the thing.” 

And as I reached out to pick up a copy, Renoir ex- 
claimed: “Don’t touch them! I put them there for 
the model to rest her foot on.” 


Renoir had sat down before his easel and opened 
his colour-box. I was amazed at the order and clean- 
16 


HOW I MADE THE ACQUAINTANCE OF RENOIR 


liness of it: palette, brushes, tubes flattened and rolled 
up as they were emptied—all gave an impression of an 
almost feminine neatness. 

I told the painter how delighted I had been with the 
two nudes in the dining-room. 

“They are studies of the maids. Some of our serv- 
ants have had admirable figures, and have posed like 
angels. But I must admit I’m not hard to please. I 
had just as lief paint the first old crock that comes 
along, just so long as she has a skin that takes the light. 
I don’t see how artists can paint those over-bred 
females they call society women! Have you ever seen 
a society woman whose hands were worth painting? 
A woman’s hands are lovely—if they are accustomed . 
to housework. At the Farnesina in Rome there is a 
Venus Supplicating Jupiter, by Raphael. What mar- 
velous hands and arms! She looks like a great, healthy 
housewife snatched for a moment from her kitchen to 
pose for Venus! That’s why Stendhal thought that 
Raphael’s women were common and gross.” 

My visit was cut short by the arrival of a model. 
I said good-bye, and asked if I might come again. 

“As often as you like! But come preferably towards 
evening when I have finished my work.” 


Renoir’s existence was ordered like that of a bank 
employé. He went to his studio just as punctually as 
a clerk to his office. In the evening, after a game of 
chequers or dominoes with Madame Renoir, he went to 
bed early; he was afraid it would affect his work the 

17 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


next day if he stayed up late. All his life, painting was 
his only pleasure, his only relaxation. 

I remember in 1911 meeting Madame Renoir as she 
was coming out of a hospital where Renoir was to be 
operated on. 

“How is he getting along?” I asked. 

“The operation has been put off until to-morrow,” 
she replied. “I’m afraid you will have to excuse me. 
I am in a great hurry. . . . My husband has sent me to 
get his paints. He wants to do the flowers that were 
brought to him this morning.” 

Renoir worked at these flowers the entire day and all 
the next morning until it was time to go on the 
operating-table. 

Another time, in 1916 (Renoir had passed his 
seventy-fifth birthday), during the course of a visit to 
his home in Cagnes, I was struck by his sudden look of 
discouragement. | asked about the canvas he was then 
working on. 

“There’s no use, I can’t paint,” he answered. “I’m no 
good for anything any more.” He closed his eyes 
dispiritedly, and I went down into the garden for fear | 
was not wanted. A moment later I heard La Grande 
Louise ? calling me. 

“Monsieur Renoir wants you in the studio,” she said. 

I found him at his easel, radiant. He was struggling 
with some dahlias. 

“Look, Vollard, isn’t that almost as gorgeous as a 
Delacroix battle-piecer I think this time I’ve got 
the secret of painting! . . . What a pity that every bit 


2An old servant of the Renoirs. 


18 





LISA (1867) 
Folkwang Museum, Hagen, Westphalia 


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,» HOW I MADE THE ACQUAINTANCE OF RENOIR 


of progress one makes is only a step towards the grave! 
If I could only live long enough to do a masterpiece!” 


It is easy to imagine how eager I was to take advan- 
tage of Renoir’s invitation to come again. The follow- 
ing week I called after dinner. This time he had just 
gone to bed! “I was all alone this evening,” he ex- 
plained, “‘so I went to bed earlier than usual. Gabrielle 
is going to read me La Dame de Monsoreau. You're 
invited to the party.” 

But La Dame de Monsoreau could not be found. 

“Well, then, Gabrielle,’ said Renoir, “see what there 
is in the library.” 

Gabrielle opened a little bookcase where twenty or 
more books were lying in a heap, and began reading the 
titles aloud: “Cruelle Enigme, Peint par Eux-Mémes, 
Lettres a Francoise, Les Confessions dun Amant, 
Deuxiéme Amour, Les Fleurs du Mal...” 

Renoir, interrupting: “I detest that book above all 
others! I have no idea who brought that here. If you 
had heard Mounet Sully (I think he was the one) re- 
cite La Charogne, at Madame Charpentier’s, as I did, 
with all those silly asses gushing around about it! ... 
It’s just as bad as the rest of the stuff Gabrielle was 
reading over. My friends are always trying to make 
me read a lot of rubbish.” 

Gabrielle continued: “Mon Frére Yves, La Chanson 
des Gueux, Les Misérables .. .” 

Renoir, who was listening indifferently, waved his 
hand in a gesture of annoyance on hearing this last 
title. 

19 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 

“They say that Hugo’s poetry is very beautiful,” | 
observed. 

“Anyone would be a fool to say that Hugo is not a 
man of genius,” Renoir replied, “but as far as I’m con- 
cerned, I don’t like him. The chief grievance I have 
against him is that he has got the French people out 
of the habit of using simple language. Gabrielle, I 
want you to get me La Dame de Monsoreau to-morrow 
without fail.” 

Then, turning to me: “There’s a masterpiece for 
you! . ... The chapter in which Chicot blesses the pro- 
cession is simply superb!” 

“Oh, Monsieur Renoir!’ cried Gabrielle suddenly. 
“T’ve found a book by Alexandre Dumas.” 

Renoir’s face brightened. 

“Good. . Let’s have a look at it.” 

But when Gabrielle announced triumphantly La 
Dame aux Camélias, Renoir exclaimed: “Never! I 
detest everything the younger Dumas wrote, and that 
book more than all the others. I have always had a 
horror of sentimental harlotry.” 


On top of the side-board in the dining-room, I saw 
a little coffee service and two porcelain candlesticks, 
decorated by hand. Any industrious young girl might 
have painted them. I presumed that they were a gift 
of some kind. Renoir saw me looking at them. 

“Those are the only souvenirs I have left of my china- 
painting days,’ he said. 

And he proceeded to tell me something about his 
youth. It interested me so profoundly that I adopted 

20 


HOW I MADE THE ACQUAINTANCE OF RENOIR 
the plan of asking the painter, every time I saw him, 
to tell me something about his life. This, then, is the 
story of the career of a great painter, told in his own 
words and set down faithfully from day to day. 


21 


CHAPTER TWO 
THE BEGINNINGS 


Renoir: I was born at Limoges in 1841. There is a 
legend about the name Renoir which has been handed 
down in our family from generation to generation. My 
grandmother often recounted how my grandfather, a 
man of noble birth, whose family perished during the 
Reign of Terror, was picked up as a child and adopted 
by a shoemaker called Renoir. However that may be, 
my father, at the time I came into the world, was a 
poor tailor, and, being hard put to it to make a living 
in Limoges, went to seek his fortune in Paris. Dont 
ask me to tell you about Limoges. I was scarcely four 
years old when I left the place, and I have never been 
back. 

At Paris we lived in a house situated in that part 
of the Rue d’Argenteuil which, in extension across the 
Place de la Carrousel, was included within the wings of 
the Louvre. 

At the public school to which I was sent, my teachers 
reprimanded me for spending my time drawing pictures 
in my copy-books; but my parents, contrary to all tradi- 
tions, were quite happy over it, for immediately they 
had hopes of my becoming a china-painter. Inasmuch 
as my father came from a city famous for its porcelain, 

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THE BEGINNINGS 
it was natural that the profession of china-painting 
should seem the finest in the world in his eyes, finer 
even than music, which the music professor at school— 
who was none other than Gounod, then about thirty 
years old—urged me to follow. 

When it was fully decided that I was to become an 
“artist,” I was apprenticed to a manufacturer of glazed 
ware. At thirteen I was earning my own living. The 
work consisted in painting little bouquets on a white 
background. For this I was paid five cents a dozen. 
When there were large pieces to decorate, the bouquets 
were larger. From then on, prices went up—a trifling 
amount to be sure—for a wise employer mustn’t spoil 
his men with too much gold. ... The entire output 
was sent to Oriental countries, and, | may add, the 
“Sévres” trademark was stamped on the back of each 
piece before it was shipped. 

When I was a little more sure of myself, I was pro- 
moted from bouquets to portraits, always at starvation 
wages. I remember that the profile of Marie Antoinette 
brought me eight sous. The shop where I worked was 
situated in the Rue du Temple. I had to be there by 
eight o'clock in the morning. At ten I ran to the 
Louvre to sketch from the antique, for recreation, until 
noon. As for my meals, I managed to eat a bite wher- 
ever my errands took me. 

One day I found myself in the Halles quarter and, 
in hunting for one of those wine-shops where they serve 
fried food and beef, I stopped spellbound in front of 
the Fountain of the Innocents by Jean Goujon, which 
I had never even noticed before. I at once decided to 

23 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


forego the wine-shop, and after buying a bit of sausage 
at a near-by store, I spent my hour of freedom studying 
the fountain from every angle. Perhaps because of 
this encounter long ago, I have always had a very 
special affection for Jean Goujon. He has purity, 
naiveté, elegance; and at the same time the form it- 
self is amazingly solid. The sculpture of our day looks 
as if it had been carved out of soap; the old sculptors 
hacked out the stone themselves with a heavy mallet 
and a chisel, but they gave you the texture of flesh. 

Germain Pilon tried to emulate Goujon, but he made 
a sorry job of it. For one thing, his draperies are too 
complicated. And drapery is terribly hard to do well! 
Goujon knew how to make it cling to the figure. One 
doesn’t realize how much drapery brings out the form. 

After the luncheon hour, I used to return to the shop, 
where I painted my cups and dishes till nightfall. But 
that was not all. After dinner I would go to the house 
of an old sculptor, a good old soul who made models of 
vases for my employer. He was very friendly to me 
and proved his interest by having me copy his models. 

My apprenticeship lasted four years. I was seven- 
teen then and I saw before me the magnificent career 
of a painter of porcelain at six francs a day. Then a 
catastrophe occurred which ruined my dreams of the 
future. 

The first experiments in printing on faiences and por- 
celain had just been made; the infatuation of the public 
for this new process knew no bounds .. . invaria- 
bly the case when hand-work is replaced by ma- 
chinery! Our shops had to close, and I tried to compete 

24 


THE BEGINNINGS 


with the machine-made product by working for the 
same prices. But I was soon obliged to give it up. 
The dealers to whom I showed my cups and saucers all 
seemed to have conspired against me. “Oh, that’s 
hand-made,” they would say. “Our clientele prefers 
machine-work. It’s more even.’ So I began decorating 
fans with copies of Watteau, Lancret, and Boucher. I 
even used Watteau’s Embarkation for Cythera! I was 
brought up, you see, on the eighteenth century French 
masters. 

To be more precise, Boucher’s Diana at the Bath 
was the first picture that took my fancy, and I have 
clung to it all my life as one does to one’s first love. 
I have been told many a time that I ought not to like 
Boucher, because “he is only a decorator.’ As if be- 
ing a decorator made any difference! Why, Boucher 
is one of the painters who best understood the female 
body. What fresh, youthful buttocks he painted, 
with the most enchanting little dimples! It’s odd that 
people are never willing to give a man credit for what 
he can do. They say: “I like Titian better than 
Boucher.” Good Lord, so do I! But that has nothing 
to do with the fact that Boucher painted lovely women 
superbly. A painter who has the feel for breasts and 
buttocks is saved! 

Here is an anecdote that will amuse you. One day 
I was admiring a Fragonard—a shepherdess in a cap- 
tivating little skirt which itself made the entire picture 
—when I heard someone remark that shepherd girls 
were probably just as slovenly then as they are now. 
What do you think of that! Wouldn’t you admire an 

25 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 
artist the more who can take a filthy model and give 
you a jewel? 

Vollard: And what about Chardin? 

Renoir: Chardin makes me sick. He has done 
some pretty still-lifes, perhaps. .. . 

But I was telling you about my fans. They were 
fortunately not my only source of income. My elder 
brother, who was an engraver, sometimes obtained coats 
of arms for me to copy. I remember doing a Saznt 
George with a Shield. On the shield I drew another 
Saint George in the same position, and so on until the 
last shield and the last St. George could be seen only 
with the aid of a magnifying-glass. But the fans and 
the Saint Georges brought in very little, and I hardly 
knew which way to turn, when one day I saw at the 
back of a court-yard in the Rue Dauphine a large café, 
enclosed in glass, with painters at work decorating the 
walls. As I came nearer, I heard a dispute going on: 
the employer was cursing and storming at his lazy 
workmen, because the paintings in his café were not 
going to be done in time. I immediately offered to do 
the decorations myself. 

“Oh, I need at least three men, and I want regular 
workmen,” said the proprietor contemptuously, for I was 
small and slightly built. : 

But without waiting for further objections, | took 
up a brush and showed him to his delight that I could 
paint as fast as any three workmen. 

When I finished the frescoes in the café, I went 
back to my fans without much enthusiasm, promising 
myself to get out of that kind of thing at the first op- 

26 





LISA (1869) 
Josef Stransky Collection, New York 





THE BEGINNINGS 


portunity. The opportunity soon came. As I was 
passing a shop I saw a little sign pasted on the door: 


PAINTER WANTED FOR WINDOW SHADES. 


I went in. 

“Where have you worked?” asked the proprietor. I 
was taken by surprise and said “Bordeaux” at a 
hazard. I had presence of mind enough to name a 
place far away, for I was afraid he would want to 
look up my references. But he evidently had some 
other idea in mind, for all he said was: “Bring mea 
sample of what you can do. Good-bye, young man.” 

Before leaving, | had time to talk with one of the 
employés, who seemed to be a good sort, and I asked 
him for information about painting shades. “Come 
and see me at my house next Sunday,” he answered. 

My first question was to find out if the boss was a 
good sort. 

“Oh, he’s a fine man,” came the reply. “He’s my 
uncle.” , 

After much hesitation, I confessed that I had never 
painted window shades. “It’s not very hard,” he said. 
“Have you ever done the figurer’ [I commenced to 
breathe again. It was reassuring to find that painting 
shades was not unlike other kinds of painting—about 
all you had to do was to add a certain quantity of 
turpentine to the colour. 

This particular shade-maker worked for missionaries 
who carried with them rolls of calico painted with re- 
ligious subjects in imitation of stained-glass windows. 
When the missionaries reached their destination, they 

ad 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


unrolled the calico around four upright poles, which 
gave the Negroes the illusion of being in a real church. 

Before long I had dashed off a superb Virgin with 
Magi and Cherubim. My instructor could not conceal 
his admiration. “How would you like to try a Sz. 
Vincent de Paul?’ he asked. 1 must explain that in 
the Virgin pictures the background consisted of clouds 
which were done easily enough by rubbing the canvas 
with a cloth, but if you didn’t know the trick, the colour 
ran down into your sleeves. Whereas the St. Vincents 
required more skill. This personage was generally 
represented giving alms at the church-door, which re- 
quired painting a certain amount of architecture. 

I emerged from the second test victoriously, and was 
engaged on the spot. I took the place of an old em- 
ployé the glory of the studio, who was sick and showed 
no signs of recovery. “If you follow in his footsteps,” 
said my new boss, “you will some day be as fine an art- 
ist as he.” 

Only one thing worried my employer. He liked my 
work and even went so far as to confess that he had 
never found such a clever hand; but he knew the value 
of money and it disturbed him that I should be making 
it so easily, for we were paid by the piece. My prede- 
cessor, who was always held up to new-comers as the 
perfect example, never painted anything without long 
preparation and a careful preliminary sketch. When 
the boss saw me paint in my figures directly on the bare 
cloth, he was aghast: ‘What a pity it is that you are 
so anxious to make money! You'll find that in the 
long run you will lose your skill.” , 

28 


THE BEGINNINGS 

When he was finally forced to admit that the “squar- 
ing’ process could be discarded, he wanted to cut down 
the prices. But his nephew advised me to stick to my 
guns. “He can’t get along without you,” he said. 

When I had put by a tidy little sum, however, | 
decided to say good-bye to the shade-maker. You can 
imagine how upset he was. He even promised me a 
partnership if I would stay on. The offer was tempt- 
ing, but I did not allow myself to be persuaded, and, 
having saved enough to live on for a while (if I were 
not extravagant), I went to learn “serious painting’ at 
Gleyre’s studio, where I could work from a living 
model. 


29 


CHAPTER THREE 
THE GLEYRE STUDIO 


RENoIR: I chose the Gleyre studio because I wanted 
to be with my friend Laporte, whom I had known as a 
child. I might have stayed on with the window- 
shade maker if Laporte had not begged me so often to 
join him. Our comradeship did not last, however; 
our interests were too dissimilar. But I am more than 
grateful to Laporte for having influenced me to turn 
seriously towards painting, which resulted in my meeting 
Monet, Sisley and Bazille. 

Gleyre was Swiss; he was a very estimable painter ! 
but of no help to his pupils; he had the merit, however, 
of leaving them pretty much to their own devices. Be- 
fore long I met the three artists whom I just mentioned. 
Bazille, after giving high promise, was shot down in 
the first battle of 1870, while still a young man. The 
public has barely begun to do him justice. The first 
buyers of “Impressionism” did not take Bazille’s work 
very seriously, doubtless because he was rich. 

Vollard: What painters were your group most drawn 
tor 

R.: Monet, being a native of Havre, had known 
Jongkind there and admired him a great deal; Sisley 

1 The painter of Lost Illusions in the Louvre. 


30 


THE GLEYRE STUDIO 


was influenced chiefly by Corot; my hero was Diaz. 
His pictures have become very black, but in those days 
they sparkled like precious stones. 

V.: Did you ever work at the Beaux Arts? 

R.: ‘The Beaux Arts was far from being what it is 
to-day. There were only two courses then, one in draw- 
ing, from eight o'clock until ten in the evening; the 
other in anatomy. From time to time the School of 
Medicine near by would obligingly lend a corpse to the 
anatomy class. Sometimes I attended these two classes, 
but I really learned the elementary technique of paint- 
ing at Gleyre’s. 

V.: What instructors did you have at the Beaux 
ArtsP : 

R.:; The only one I remember particularly was 
Signol. One day I was drawing a cast from the antique. 
When he came to me he exclaimed: ‘Don’t you realize 
that the big toe of Germanicus ought to have more 
majesty than the big toe of the coal dealer round the 
corner?’ He walked away muttering solemnly: “The 
big toe of Germanicus .. .” 

Just at that moment, somebody at the easel next to 
me, dissatisfied with his drawing, muttered an oath 
which Signol thought was intended for him. What 
is more, he imagined that I was responsible for it. He 
had me expelled instantly. An oil study that I had 
brought to his class aroused his antagonism the very 
first day; he was fairly beside himself on account of an 
ugly red that I had used in my picture. “Look out you 
don’t become another Delacroix!” he warned me sar- 
castically. 

31 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


V.: But people are beginning to get used to your 
colour now. In fact, they are even beginning to like it. 
At the Luxembourg one day, I made the acquaintance 
of a connoisseur who was fairly bursting with enthusi- 
asm. “Renoir is the very God of colour!” he declared. 
But I must tell you frankly that your drawing did not 
please him as much. Later he stopped in front of the 
Mater Dolorosa and exclaimed: ‘Wonderful drawing, 
you'll have to admit! What a pity that Renoir cannot 
combine that magical colour of his with Bouguereau’s 
draughtsmanship!” 

R.: There is nothing more absurd than a “‘connois- 
seur.” [once overheard two of your so-called connois- 
seurs discussing a picture. “No doubt it has excellent 
qualities,” said one, “but is it a genre picture or a 
historical pictureP” And the necktie magnate—lI can't 
remember his name—was even worse; you know, the 
fellow who used to buy Gustave Moreaus. He took me 
to his villa in the suburbs of Paris and showed me 
two wretched little pictures signed Corot, and then, 
when I suggested some doubt as to their authenticity, 
he said: “Oh, well, they’re good enough for the 
country!” 

I could paint with molasses now, and everybody 
would praise my brilliant colour; but you should have 
seen the dirty colour on my palette when people were 
already beginning to call me revolutionary! I must 
admit that I floundered about in bitumen without any 
great enthusiasm. I was encouraged in the bad habit 
by a picture dealer, the first one to give me any com- 

32 


THE GLEYRE STUDIO 


missions. Much later I found out why my black period 
was so popular. In the course of a trip to England, I 
made the acquaintance of a collector who claimed that 
he owned a Rousseau. He took me to his house, and, 
having made me tiptoe, by way of respect for the mas- 
ters work, into the room where the picture was en- 
shrined, he threw back a hanging from a huge frame, 
and in a hushed voice said: ‘Behold!” 

“It’s a bit black, isn’t it?” I ventured, recognizing 
one of my own early products. He repressed a smile at 
my lack of taste, and launched into such a eulogy of 
his treasure that I could not refrain from telling him 
that I was responsible for it. I was really annoyed at 
the result: the worthy Englishman suddenly changed 
his tune; he proceeded to let loose a torrent of abuse on 
the dealer who had sold it. The effrontery of the man, 
to have foisted a Renoir on him for a Rousseau! (And 
I had fancied that my name was getting to be known 
—for all this took place at a time when I had long since 
abandoned the use of bitumen. ) 

One of the chief reasons why I stopped painting 
“black” was my encounter with Diaz. I met him under 
very curious circumstances, on a day when I was working 
in the Forest of Fontainebleau, where I used to go in the 
summer to paint landscapes with Sisley. In those days, 
even when working out of doors, | wore the blouse which 
porcelain-decorators usually wear in the shops. On 
this particular day I got into a quarrel with some 
loafers who were making fun of my costume. I got 
mad, and that only made things worse. At this mo- 

33 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


ment a man came up, who, though hampered by a 
wooden leg, succeeded in putting the rascals to rout 
with the aid of a heavy cane, which he handled with 
great skill. When I thanked him, he said: “I am a 
painter too. My name is Diaz.” I told him my ad- 
miration for his work and fearfully showed him the 
canvas I was then doing. “It’s not badly drawn,” he 
said. (That was perhaps the only time I have ever 
heard my draughtsmanship praised!) “But why the 
devil do you paint so blackP”’ 

I immediately began another landscape, and tried to 
render the light on the trees, in the shadows, and on 
the ground as it really appeared to me. “Youre 
crazy!” exclaimed Sisley when he saw my picture. “The 
idea of making trees blue and the ground purple!” 

V.: When did you exhibit at the Salon for the first 
timer | | 

R.: In 1863. A big canvas of mine was accepted 
in that year. Oddly enough | was championed by 
Cabanel, who was chairman of the Jury. Not that he 
cared for my work. On the contrary, he declared 
that he thoroughly disliked it. “But in spite of that,” 
he hastened to add, “it is an effort which ought to be 
recognized.” The canvas represented Esmeralda danc- 
ing with her goat around a fire, surrounded by a circle 
of beggars. I remember the reflections of the flame and 
the great shadows on the cathedral. After the Salon 
was over, I destroyed it, partly because it was too 
cumbersome, and partly because I had conceived a 
distaste for bitumen, which I had not yet discarded 

34 


THE GLEYRE STUDIO 


when it was painted. Just my luck! The same day 
an Englishman, who wanted that very picture, came 
to see me. I can honestly say that the Esmeralda was 
the last thing I ever painted with bitumen. 

My friends at Gleyre’s had braved the Salon the same 
year, but they were less fortunate. Other painters, 
much better known than I, had also been refused that 
year, from Manet down. The way they were treated 
gave rise to such protests in the press that the Emperor 
Napoleon III consented to a Salon des Refusés being 
held in one of the rooms in the Louvre. But a member 
of the Academy was given charge of it. It goes without 
saying that the exhibitors were given the worst rooms in 
the museum. Yet nowadays there would be small 
chance either of a Minister of the Beaux Arts authorizing 
such an exhibition in the Louvre, or a Bonnat agreeing 
to organize it. They were very liberal under the Em- 
pire. But there were not so many painters at that time 
as now, although even then they were beginning to be a 
nuisance. The reply that Balzac made when asked to 
write up a Salon during the reign of Louis Philippe is 
indicative: ‘You don’t expect a man to look at four 
hundred pictures, do your” 

It goes without saying that the Salon des Refusés 
was a huge joke from the public’s point of view. Manet 
had sent his Al Fresco Luncheon. This canvas had 
just been refused at the Salon, as much on account of 
the actual painting, which was considered bad, as the 
subject, which was thought somewhat indecent. Appar- 
ently the members of the jury were unaware not only that 

35 . 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 
Manet had borrowed one of the subjects of the great 
Venetian school but also that his nude woman was 
practically a copy from Raphael. 

It was that year also (1863) that I met Cézanne. At 
that time I had a little studio in the Rue de la 
Condamine in the Batignolles quarter, which I shared 
with Bazille. Bazille came in one day accompanied 
by two young men. “I’ve brought you two fine re- 
cruits!” he announced, They were Cézanne and 
Pissarro. 

I came to know them both intimately later on, but 
it was Cézanne who made the sharpest impression on my 
mind. I do not believe that a case like Cézanne’s is to 
be found in the whole history of art. Think of his living 
to the age of sixty-six, and, from the first day he took 
a brush in his hand, remaining as isolated as if he were 
on a desert island! And then, along with a passionate 
love for his art, was that strange indifference to the fate 
of his pictures, once they were done, even when he was 
lucky enough to “realize.” 2 Can you picture Cézanne 
having to wait for a purchaser to be sure of his next 
meal if he had not had an income? Can you imagine 
him forcing a complacent smile for an “amateur” who 
dared disparage Delacroix? And with all that, he was 
“so unpractical in the ways of the world,” as he himself 
used to say. 

One day I met him carrying a picture one end of 
which was dragging along the ground. “There’s not a 


2 “Realizing” a picture was Cézanne’s picturesque way of saying 
that he had succeeded in translating satisfactorily the impressions he 
received from Nature. (Trans. Note.) 


36 . 





ET (1876) 


PORTRAIT OF CHOQU 
Durand 


1S 


Pari 


ton 


-Ruel Collect 





THE GLEYRE STUDIO 


cent left in the house!” he informed me. “I’m going 
to try to sell this canvas. It’s pretty well realized, 
don’t you think?” (It was the famous Bathers of the 
Caillebotte Collection—a superb thing!) A few days 
later | met Cézanne again. ‘My dear Renoir,” he said 
feelingly, “I am so happy! I’ve had great success with 
my picture. It has been taken by someone who really 
likes it!” 

“What luck!” I said to myself. “He’s found a 
buyer.” 

The “buyer” was Cabaner,® a poor devil of a musician, 
who had all he could do to earn four or five francs a 
day. Cézanne had met him in the street, and Cabaner 
went into such ecstasies over the canvas that the painter 
made him a present of it. 

I shall never forget the good times I had at Cézanne’s 
home in the Midi, called the Jas de Bouffan (Home 
of the Winds). It was a lovely eighteenth-century place. 
Those were the days when they built really livable 
houses. There were great high-ceilinged rooms, and it 
was delightful to sit in front of a huge fire-place with 
a screen at your back. What fine fennel soups 
Cézanne’s mother used to make for us! It seems only 
yesterday that I heard her giving her recipe: “Now 
take a branch of fennel, a teaspoonful of olive oil . . .” 
and so on. What a fine person she was! 


Renoir went on: ~- I have told you about the Salon of 


8 For further information about Cabaner, see Paul Cézanne, His 
Life and His Art, by Ambroise Vollard, translated by Harold L. Van 
Doren. (Nicholas L. Brown, New York, 1923.) - 

37 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


1863. I was not so fortunate the following year, and 
therefore I had to exhibit at the Refusés. This time, 
the Refusés was not much of a success. . In 1865, how- 
ever, I had the good fortune to be again admitted to 
the Salon of Cabanel, with a picture of a young man 
walking in the forest of Fontainebleau, accompanied by 
his dogs; the painter Lecceur posed for it. It was done 
with the knife, a method which does not suit me very 
well, and which I rarely use. I remember, however, 
having painted in the same year a life-size nude, also 
with the knife. It was intended to be nothing more 
than a study of the nude. But the picture was thought 
improper, so I put a bow in the model’s hand and a 
doe at her feet. I added an animal skin to make it 
less blatantly naked, and the picture became a Diana! 
But even then I did not succeed in selling it. A pros- 
pective buyer appeared one day, but we couldn’t come 
to any agreement, for he wanted to buy the doe only, 
and I did not propose to “retail” my canvas. 


This conversation took place during a walk in the 
woods at Louveciennes. Suddenly Renoir stopped and 
pointed to a near-by hillock. “I know only three artists 
who could paint those trees and that sky—Claude 
Lorrain, Corot, and Cézanne.” | 


By chance one day I met the painter Laporte, the 
friend of Renoir’s youth to whom Renoir attributed his 
decision to become a painter. 

Madame Ellen Andrée, who had posed for some of 
Renoir’s finest studies, asked me to take luncheon with 

38 


THE GLEYRE STUDIO 


her one day at her house at Ville d’Avray. “We shall 
dine out of doors under the rose arbour, and we shall 
talk of Renoir,” she said. I accepted with infinite 
pleasure. 

In that delightful garden where everything grows 
haphazard—Mon Paradou, as Madame Andrée used to 
call it—I was presented to a well-preserved, elderly 
gentleman who had all the traditional glamour of the 
artist: a soft hat with a wide brim, and a romantic- 
looking cape. It was Laporte. 

At table, one of the guests, Henri Dumont, a painter 
of delicate flower pictures, began praising Renoir’s 
work. 

“You mean Renoir the Impressionist?” the old gentle- 
man demanded. “I knew him well in my youth; in fact 
we were quite intimate. If you see him, ask him about 
his friend Laporte; he will surely remember me. In 
those days I used to paint church windows for my 
daily bread, and very bitter bread it was, if you realize 
that I was already a confirmed free-thinker.” 

“Do you own any of Renoir’s pictures?” I asked. 

“Yes, I have a Rose that he gave me once, and in 
exchange I made him a present of a Sheep painted in 
bitumen, a study from nature that I was rather pleased 
with. But I soon got out of touch with Renoir. Life 

. women . . . separated us.” 

“T thought that Renoir regarded women only as 
subjects for painting,” I said. 

“Well, J don’t feel that way about them,’ replied 
Monsieur Laporte sharply. ‘Indeed, when I started 
falling in love, I began to neglect my friends a bit.” 

39 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


After a pause, he went on: ‘“‘Renoir’s weak point is his 
drawing, don’t you think? Heaven knows I begged him 
often enough to guard against it! I have always hada 
great weakness for David. There’s a painter who 
doesn’t trifle with line! If Renoir had listened to me 
and had paid as much attention to drawing as to colour, 
who knows if he might not have become another David, 
like my eminent friend Lecomte du Nouy! I once said 
to Renoir: ‘You must make yourself draw!’ and do 
you know what he replied? ‘I am like a cork thrown 
into a stream and tossed about on the current. When 
I paint I just let myself go completely.’ ” 

“In any case, Renoir seems to have succeeded rather 
well,” I observed. 

Laporte thought I was speaking of the prices Renoirs 
were bringing. “Yes, if you count the sales at the 
Hotel des Ventes as cash! But you can’t fool an old 
hand like me! I know only too well how little that 
means. And do you know what I’ve just heard? The 
dealers are encouraging their artists to run into debt 
in order to keep them well in hand!” 


Later I found another acquaintance of Renoir’s youth. 
My housekeeper had said to me: “I see by the paper 
that the pictures by this Monsieur Renoir who comes 
here, sell for big prices. There’s a gentleman in the 
house where I work sometimes, used to know Monsieur 
Renoir . . . he’s a janitor on the Grand Boulevards.” 

I went to the address she gave me. “Renoir?” said the 
janitor. “I saw his picture in a paper the other day and 
I recognized him right away. Fifty years ago we used 

40 


THE GLEYRE STUDIO 


to eat in the same creamery. There were several of us 
painters at the same table. . . . Renoir was always 
talking about painting. He took me with him to the 
Louvre once or twice. At that time I was clerking for a 
painting and decorating firm which has since. . .” 

“But do you remember anything Renoir said?” I 
interrupted. 

“Like it was yesterday, sir. At our table, for 
instance, we'd agreed that each day a different person 
was to get the marrowbone, but every day Renoir said 
it was his turn!” 

He became silent; his recollections of the painter 
ended there. 


4] 


CHAPTER FOUR 
“MOTHER ANTHONY’S CABARET” 


Renoir: A picture of mine called Mother Anthony's 
Cabaret brings back some of the most agreeable mem- 
ories of my life. Not that I find the canvas particularly 
exciting in itself, but it reminds me of good old Mother 
Anthony and her inn at Marlotte, a real village inn. 
The subject of the picture is the common room, which 
did double duty as dining-room and lounge. The old 
lady with the kerchief round her head is Mother An- 
thony herself. The handsome young girl handing round 
the drinks is the servant Nana. The frizzly white dog 
is ““Toto”—who had a wooden paw! I got some of my 
friends to pose around the table, among them Sisley 
and Leceur. The motifs in the background of the 
picture were borrowed from sketches actually painted 
on the wall. These ‘frescoes,’ unpretentious but often 
quite successful, were the work of the artist habitués 
of the place. I myself painted the profile of Miirger,* 
which appears in Mother Anthony's Cabaret, high up at 
the left. Some of these decorations pleased me in- 
finitely, and I made Mother Anthony promise never to 
have them scraped away. I thought that I had saved 
them from destruction by telling her that if the house 


1The author of La Bohbéme was a familiar figure in Marlotte. 


42 


“MOTHER ANTHONY’S CABARET” 


were one day demolished, she could get a good price for 
her “frescoes.” 

The following summer I settled in Chailly, a village 
near Marlotte, where I painted Lise (1866). One day 
as I was working sur le motif, as Cézanne would have 
said, I overheard one of a group of young men near by 
talking about me. 

“The nerve of this fellow Renoir!” he said. ‘“He’s 
had those funny pictures scraped off, so he could put 
one of his own big blobs in their place!’ I hurried to 
the inn. It seems that Henri Regnault, who was 
already celebrated, had stopped for a few days at 
Mother Anthony’s, and was appalled by the vulgarity 
of the decorations: some art student had taken it upon 
himself to turn the nude backsides of an old woman into 
the face of an old soldier, with whiskers and a peaked 
cap! 

“Scrape out those horrible things at once!’ Regnault 
had exclaimed. “I will paint you something really 
artistic.” 

Mother Anthony, taking him at his word, had a man 
come in to clean them off; but Regnault departed with- 
out giving his promise a second thought. To cover 
the bareness of the wall, she then decided to use the 
canvas I had left when I went away the previous 
summer, and which had been put away in the garret. 

Vollard: Was the Lise, which you just mentioned, 
accepted by the Salonr 

R.: Yes, in 1867, the year of the World’s Fair. 
That year I also did a picture of a garden at the World’s 
Fair grounds, which was not finished until 1868. This 

43 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


inoffensive picture was considered too daring for the 
Salon. For many years it remained in a corner at 
Louveciennes, where my family was living. 

The World’s Fair was not the only sensation of 1867 
——the private exhibitions of Courbet and Manet were 
also held that year! 

V.: Did you know Courbet? 

R.: Yes, quite well. He was the most astounding 
man you can possibly imagine. I shall never forget an 
incident at his exhibition of 1867.2. He had built a 
kind of balcony or soupente, on which he slept and 
from which he could watch his exhibition. When the 
first visitors arrived, he was just getting dressed. . 
In order not to miss any of the public’s enthusiasm, 
he came down in his flannel undershirt, not even 
taking time to put on the rest of his clothes, which 
he still carried in his hand. There he stood, in grave 
contemplation of his own pictures, and exclaimed: 
“How beautiful! How magnificent! It’s incredible! 
It’s enough to take your breath away!” 

And he kept repeating: “Incredible! Incredible!” 

At some exhibition where his pictures had been hung 
near the entrance, he is said to have remarked: “How 
stupid of them! There’s such a crowd, you can’t even 
get in!” 

This kind of admiration, mind you, he reserved for 

2The Jury of the World’s Fair had refused to admit Courbet’s 
pictures. With characteristic energy he rented a vacant lot just out- 
side the Exposition grounds, had a small wooden building erected, 
put a large sign over the door reading: “G. Courbet, Painter,” and 
managed his own exhibition. (Trans. Note.) 


44 


“MOTHER ANTHONY’S CABARET” 


bis work only. One day he tried his best to compliment 
Monet, with whom he was very intimate. “Your Salon 
picture is pretty bad, you know,” said Courbet. “But 
Lord! how it’s going to annoy the Jury!” 

V.: Do you like Courbet’s work yourself? 

R.; His early things, yes. But as soon as he be- 
came ‘Monsieur’ Courbet .. .” 

V.: By the way, what about the picture that is so 
much talked about, Good Morning, Monsieur Courbet? 

R.: I always get the impression from it that the 
painter must have spent months in front of a mirror 
“finishing off’ that beard of his. And poor little Bruyas 
stands there bent over as if he were out in the rain, 
doing his best to keep from getting wet. But take 
the Demoiselles de la Seine, on the other hand. There’s 
a magnificent picture for you! It is hard to believe 
that the man who painted the portrait of Prud’hon, and 
the curates on their donkeys, painted that! 

V.: I heard some Courbet admirers say that the 
donkey picture is inferior to the others only because 
Courbet did not have real priests pose for it, but dressed 
up some models in clerical clothes—in short, that the 
natural quality indispensable to Courbet was lacking. 

R.; Another of Courbet’s manias—Nature! I wish 
you could have seen the studio he fixed up to “do Na- 
ture,” with a calf tied to the model stand! 

V.: Have you ever heard the story about the young 
artist who came to Courbet for an opinion on a Head 
of Christ that he had painted? Courbet took one look 
at the picture and then turned a severe eye on the un- 

45 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 
fortunate young man. “Have you ever seen Christ?” 
he demanded. “Why don’t you paint a portrait of your 
father instead?” 

R.: Not bad, if somebody else had said it; but, com- 
ing from Courbet, it doesn’t impress me very much. 
When Manet painted his Christ with the Angels—what 
painting, by the way! what a wonderful impasto!— 
Courbet said to him: “Have you ever seen an angel? 
How do you know whether an angel has a behind or 
not?” 

V.: Whenever Courbet is mentioned, people always 
speak of his “power.” 

R.: Just what Degas was for ever praising in Legros. 
As far as | am concerned, I had rather have a penny 
plate done in three pretty colours than miles of your 
“powerful’”—and tedious—painting! 

V.: How did things stand between Manet and 
Courbet?P 

R.: Manet was attracted to Courbet, but Courbet 
didn’t have much use for Manet’s work. It was only 
natural, when you come to think of it. Courbet was 
still in the tradition, whereas Manet belonged to a new 
era in painting. Of course I am not naive enough to 
pretend that there are any absolutely new currents in 
the arts. In art, as in Nature, what we are likely to 
think new is, at bottom, only a more or less modified 
continuation of what has gone before. But that does 
not alter the fact that the Revolution of 1789 began the 
destruction of all traditions. The disappearance of 
traditions in painting, as in the other arts, was brought 
about only by imperceptible degrees, and the masters 

46 


StL ‘Unasnpy sinoquiaxnT “ysanbag ajjoqaipiwy 


(</SU.LLLA IVS VEaOsN IO Wweayal 





= 





“MOTHER ANTHONY’S CABARET” 


of the first half of the nineteenth century—Géricault, 
Ingres, Delacroix, Daumier—were still impregnated 
with the old traditions. Even Courbet himself, with 
his rather gross drawing. But Manet and our group 
came along at a moment when the destructive forces de- 
riving from the Revolution were exhausted. To be sure, 
certain among the new-comers would have liked to 
link themselves with tradition, the immense benefits of 
which they felt, unconsciously; but to do that, they 
would first of all have had to learn the traditional tech- 
- nique of painting, but when you are left to your own 
resources, you necessarily begin with the simple before 
attempting the complex, just as, to be able to read, you 
must first learn the letters of the alphabet. You realize, 
then, that for us the great task has been to paint as 
simply as possible; but you also realize how much the 
inheritors of tradition—from such men as Abel de Pujol, 
Gérome, Cabanel, etc., with whom these traditions, 
which they did not comprehend, were lost in the com- 
monplace and the vulgar, up to painters like Courbet, 
Delacroix, Ingres—were bewildered by what seemed to 
them merely the naive efforts of an imagier d’Epinal.® 
Daumier is said to have remarked at a Manet exhibi- 
tion: “I’m not a very great admirer of Manet’s work, 
but I find it has this important quality: it is helping to 
bring art back to the simplicity of playing-cards.” 

The very qualities in Manet that attracted Daumier, 
repelled Courbet. 


3 A maker of primitive but expressive woodcuts printed in colours, 
(Trans. Note.) 
47 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 

“I’m not academic,’ said Courbet, “but art is not so 
simple as designing playing-cards!” 

V.: If Manet liked Courbet, how could he have con- 
formed to the teachings of such a man as CoutureP 

R.: It is hardly accurate to say that he conformed 
to them. He went to Couture’s studio as one goes to 
any place where there are models to work from———even 
to Robert-Fleury’s .. . 

V.: Someone said to Manet about Robert-Fleury: 
“Come, come, Manet; don’t be so nasty—the poor man 
has one foot in the grave .. .” Whereupon Manet re- 
torted: “Yes, but meanwhile his other foot is in burnt 
sienna mud!” 

R.: Couture and Manet could not hit it off for very 
long. When Manet left, the master said to his pupil: 
“Good-bye, young Daumier!” 


48 


CHAPTER FIVE 


LA GRENOUILLERE 


Renoir: In 1868 I painted a good deal at La Grenou- 
illére. JI remember an amusing restaurant there called 
Fournaise’s, where life was a perpetual holiday. The 
world knew how to laugh in those days! Machinery 
had not absorbed all of life; you had leisure for enjoy- 
ment and no one was the worse for it. 

By the way, have you read La Femme de Paul, by de 
Maupassant? 

Vollard: You mean the story about a young man 
who threw himself into the river because his wife 
deceived him with another woman? 

R.: De Maupassant exaggerates a bit, sometimes. 
At La Grenouillére women sometimes kissed each other 
on the mouth, but Lord knows they were normal 
enough! The “old girl” of sixty, dressed up like a 
twelve-year-old, with a doll under her arm and a hoop 
in her hand, had not yet come on the scene. 

I always stayed at Fournaise’s. There were plenty 
of pretty girls to paint; and you were not reduced, as 
you are to-day, to chasing after a model for an hour 
only to be treated finally as if you were a disgusting 
old man. I brought him a good many customers, so, 
by way of appreciation, Fournaise ordered a portrait of 

49 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


himself and one of his charming daughter, Madame Pa- 
pillon. [I painted Papa Fournaise in his white café 
vest, in the act of drinking an absinth. That canvas, 
which was then considered the last word in vulgarity, has 
suddenly become very distinguished in its handling, 
now that my pictures are fetching large prices at the 
auctions. The people who prattle with such convic- 
tion to-day about the “refined” manner of the portrait 
of Fournaise, would not even have parted with a hun- 
dred francs for a portrait, at the time when that amount 
would have been a godsend to me. All I could get my 
friends to do for me was to have their mistresses pose 
. sweet little things they were, too. 

If by chance I got a paid portrait to do, I had a 
terrible time of it getting my money! I remember espe- 
cially the portrait of the cobbler’s wife, which I painted 
in exchange for a pair of shoes. Every time I thought 

the picture was finished and saw myself wearing the 
shoes, along came the aunt, the daughter, or even the old 
servant, to criticize: 
“Do you think that my niece” (my mother, Madame, 
according to the occasion) “has a nose as long as that?” 

Finally, in order to get my shoes, I gave the old girl 
a nose like Madame de Pompadour! Then there was 
another uproar; the eyes had been all right before, but 
now it would seem that the left one, etc., etc. So the 
entire family would gather around the portrait to look 
for further faults. “Those were the good old days, just 
the’same)?.©, 4 

The cobbler, however, couldn’t hold a candle to 
Berton, a friend of mine in those days, who asked me 

50 


LA GRENOUILLERE 


how much I would charge for a portrait of his “little 
friend.” 1 suggested fifty francs. Thirty-five years 
later he brought a woman around to my studio who 
would have stopped a clock. 

“T’ve come for the portrait,’ he said. 

“What portrait?” 

“Come now, Renoir, you haven’t forgotten that back 
in ‘68 you said youd do a lady’s portrait for me for 
fifty francs. Well, here she is. She’s the daughter of 
an army officer, and she has got her normal school 
diploma,” he added, as if, by giving me her pedigree, he 
hoped to compensate in some measure for her lack of 
beauty. 

I felt I had to keep my word. I’m much too easy, 
you know. But I got my revenge by making her dis- 
card her flowered hat, her muff, and her poodle, so that 
the picture was bare of all the frills so dear to the 
heart of the “‘collector.” 1 

V.: We were talking about your first pictures done 
at La Grenouillére, that is, the canvases painted in 
1868-9. Does the large snow picture with figures be- 
long to the same period?P 

R.: Yes, the Bois de Boulogne—the one with skaters 
and pedestrians in it. I have never been able to stand 
the cold; it is the only winter landscape I ever did... . 
Oh, no, there were two or three other studies, too. But 


1] myself saw Berton coming out of a picture dealer’s shop with 
his “little friend” and the portrait. On catching sight of me, he 
called out: “That’s a fine portrait Renoir painted of my poor 
Anna! Would you believe it, we can’t get more than five thousand 
francs for it!” (Author’s Note.) 

51 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


then, even if you can stand the cold, why paint snowr 
It is a blight on the face of Nature. 

V.: Was The Harem also of that period? 

R.: The Harem was done in 1872, to be exact. It’s 
a miracle that that canvas still exists. Shortly after 
painting it, I moved away from the studio | then oc- 
cupied. I have always hated loading myself up with 
big things, so I left that picture behind in the studio. 
The concierge asked me if I was sure I had taken every- 
thing out. I nodded, and took to my heels. A long 
time afterwards, when I| had forgotten all about it, I 
was walking through the same street, and I heard some- © 
body hail me. 

It was the concierge of my old studio building. 

“Don’t you remember mer” she called. “I’m your 
old concierge. I am keeping a picture for you that you 
forgot.” 

“Oh, thanks very much,” I replied. “I'll call for it 
soon.” 

But I vowed to myself I’d never go near the place 
again. The time passed; one day, while walking in a 
remote quarter, what should I do but run straight into 
the same woman again. 

“You never came for your picture!” she cried. “I’ve 
still gotite 2." 

I was convinced by that time that that cursed picture 
would pursue me all my life, and if I wanted to get rid 
of it, I would have to pay for a cab and take it away. 
I finally screwed up the courage to call for it, and finally 
sold the thing, along with a lot of other canvases, eleven 

nye 


yl0X Man ‘Wnasnpy uvztjodosjap 
(8481) NYC THO YAH GNV UAILLNAdYVHO AWVAGVW 





LA GRENOUILLERE 

in all, for the sum of five hundred francs.? In the lot 
were The Arbour, a Portrait of Sisley, the Woman with 
a Finger on Her Lips, and the portrait of the purchaser 
himself. . . . I can’t recall his name, and I know it as 
well asmyown! Doyou know whom! meanP He was 
a caterer who turned painter. I went into his shop one 
day to buy acake. He was just putting up the shutters. 
“It’s decided,” he said. “I’m going to quit pastry and 
take up painting. In this rotten business, if a piece of 
pastry is only a week old, we have to mark down the 
price. You artists are the lucky ones; your goods keep 
indefinitely; in fact they even improve with age!” 

The Harem | was speaking to you about, makes me 
think of another picture that I painted the same year, 
an Oriental scene. It was done in a studio in Paris. 
The wife of a rug dealer posed for it. By the way, see 
if you can find that picture, Vollard. With this craze 
for insisting on my earlier manner, it might be a good 
bit of business for you. 


For years I hunted for that canvas at all the Oriental 
rug stores in Paris. Finally one day an antique dealer, 
Madame Y., who had a shop on the Grand Boulevards, 
almost at my own door, invited me to come and look 
at a portrait that Benjamin Constant had done of her. 

“T have another portrait of myself,’ she remarked 
casually, “but it is by a painter who is not so well 
known. Id like to get rid of it.” After several invita- 
_2The purchaser finally sold them, after twenty years, for over 
two hundred thousand francs. (Trans. Note.) 


53 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


tions, I went in to see the Benjamin Constant, but I 
did not even have the curiosity to ask the name of the 
painter who was “not so well known.” 

“We've just had the good luck to get three hundred 
francs for my other portrait,’ she told me. “It was 
painted by someone named Renoir, at the time I was. 
in the Oriental rug business.” 


94 


: CHAPTER SIX 


DURING THE WAR OF 1870 AND 
UNDER THE COMMUNE 


RENOIR: When war was declared, General Douay, 
whom | knew slightly, proposed that I should serve as 
an officer under his command. The offer was tempting; 
but I have never tried to plan out my life in advance; 
I have always accepted things as they came along. And 
therefore I preferred rather to remain in the ranks. 
It turned out to be the best idea in the end, for in the 
very first battle General Douay was taken prisoner and 
sent to Germany. Had I been with him, in my delicate 
state of health, I would never have lived to tell the 
tale. Instead, I spent the entire winter in Bordeaux, 
where my regiment, the 10th cavalry, had been sent. 

On account of my rather easy-going nature and, I 
dare say, my ingenuity (for I could nail up a crate 
with the best of them), my captain believed that I had 
a military bent and wanted me to continue my army 
career. Lord, if I’d gone into half the professions that 
people wanted me to! I think I told you—didn’t Ir— 
that when I was young, Gounod, who was the music 
teacher at the public school I attended, begged my par- 
ents to have me study singing. Just the other day I 
ran across a friend who remembered the days when I 
used to sing solos at Saint-Eustache. 

55 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


On returning from Bordeaux [1871], I tumbled into 
Paris in the full swing of the Commune. I was obliged 
to give up my studio in the Rue Visconti immediately. 
It had become an unhealthy hole, what with shells ex- 
ploding all around the quarter. And then, because I 
had a decided weakness for the Left Bank, I moved over 
into a room at a corner of the Rue du Dragon. 

At the outbreak of the war, I was just beginning 
to get a little recognition; I had done a portrait of 
Bazille, which luckily attracted the notice of Manet, al- 
though Manet didn’t like my work on the whole. As 
each one of my pictures came along, Manet would say: 
“No, that’s not so good as the portrait of Bazille,” 
thereby giving the impression that | had painted at least 
one thing that wasn’t bad. 

With the war my affairs went to pieces, and under 
the Commune I found myself wandering penniless back 
and forth from Paris to Versailles. Finally my luck 
turned. One day I made the acquaintance of a kind 
lady from Versailles, who ordered a portrait of herself 
and daughter for three hundred francs. I will say to 
her credit that she refrained from all comment on either 
my painting or my draughtsmanship. It was quite a 
new experience to find a sitter who never once remarked: 
“Couldn’t you bring out the eye just a little more!” 

I don’t mind that sort of thing so much when it’s a 


1In fact, Manet owned this picture at the time that it was ex- 
hibited in 1877. Bazille’s father came to the exhibition, and saw the 
portrait for the first time. He was nearly overcome by the striking 
likeness to his dead son, and Manet, hearing the story, graciously 
made him a present of it. (Trans. Note.) 


26 


THE WAR OF 1870 AND THE COMMUNE 


question of people who obviously don’t know what 
they're talking about. But when it comes to a man 
like Bérard, it’s going too far. One day I showed him 
a study of a nude that I was rather pleased with. 

“Now if you’d put two or three more days on 
that...” Bérard began. 

I cut him short. “Come now, that’s too much! | 
wish you to understand that I’m the only one qualified 
to know when a picture I’ve painted is finished or not!” 

Poor Bérard gaped at me, speechless, and I went on: 
“Listen! When I’ve painted a woman’s behind so that 
I want to touch it, then it’s finished!” 


But to come back to the Commune. This shuttling 
back and forth between Paris and Versailles had its 
disadvantages, the least of which was being cornered by 
bands of ruffians who forced you to sign up in the 
Federal ranks with the charming prospect of having 
your jaw broken subsequently when the Friends of Or- 
der should come back to Paris. Just to give you an idea 
of the stupidity of those idiots ... One day I was 
making a study on the Terrasse des Feuillants in the 
Tuileries, when a Federal officer accosted me. 

“Listen to me,’ he ordered. - “You move on and don’t 
let me catch you around here again. My men are con- 
vinced your painting is a dodge, and you're making a 
map of the country so you can hand us over to the Ver- 
sailles crowd.” 

I did not have to be told twice, for I was only too 
glad to escape with a whole skin. 

It was even worse than that, sometimes. One day, 

57 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


for instance, the Communards held up an omnibus I 
was riding in, and put all the passengers under arrest. 
I was on the driver’s box, and I managed to escape by 
slipping down between the horses. I can’t tell you how 
much I hated that crowd! But whenever I got a good 
look at some of the Versaillais. I couldn’t help feeling 
that one side was as ridiculous as the other. 

The only reason I did not get into serious trouble 
during that period was simply because I was so careful. 
It got so that I went out only at night. One evening 
my friend Maitre and I were looking in a window in 
the Odéon quarter, when my eye was caught by an en- 
graving representing the principal personages of the 
Commune. There, in the centre, was a portrait of 
Raoul Rigault. 

“I know that chap!” I exclaimed. “Why, he’s the 
new Prefect of Police!” 

“There’s your chance,’ said Maitre. “If you have a 
pull with the police, you can get all the passes you 
want.” 

I had made Rigault’s acquaintance under rather 
curious circumstances. Working in the Forest of 
Fontainebleau one day in the latter years of the Empire, 
I had observed a man seated not far from me, his clothes 
covered with dust. There was an air of indecision about 
him, and when I had finished my sitting, and was pre- 
paring to go, he approached me. 

“l’m going to put myself in your hands,” he said. 
“T used to be the editor of La Marseillaise; the paper 
has just been shut down, and some of my colleagues 
arrested; the police are after me too,” 

8 


THE WAR OF 1870 AND THE COMMUNE 


“You needn’t worry,” I told him. “There’s nothing 
but painters around here; I’ll introduce you to them as 
an old friend of mine.” 

This I did, and Raoul Rigault stayed for some time at 
Mother Anthony’s Inn. One fine day he went away, 
and | never saw him again. 

The day after my discovery I went to the Prefecture. 
I asked for Monsieur Rigault, thinking that when they 
heard that name, they would bestir themselves a bit. 
Imagine my consternation when I was told that they 
had never heard of such a person. I persisted and at 
last someone came to my rescue. “What do you mean 
by ‘Monsieur’ Rigault? We don’t know anyone here 
but ‘Citizen’ Rigault!” 

But in spite of the fact that the word “Monsieur” had 
been discarded in favour of “Citizen,” the administra- 
tive red tape was the same as it had always been. No 
- one was received, it seemed, without a request for an 
interview submitted beforehand. I wrote on a slip of 
paper the words, “Do you remember Marlotter” 

A few minutes later Citizen Rigault appeared and, 
with both hands extended, cried: “Strike up the Mar- 
seillaise in honour of Citizen Renoir!” (There was a 
great deal of band-playing during the Commune!) 

I then informed the new prefect that I desired to 
finish my study on the Terrasse des Feuillants and also 
to have the liberty to go about Paris and the suburbs 
unmolested. Needless to say, I came away provided 
with a safe-conduct which specified that the authorities 
“were to aid and assist Citizen Renoir’ in whatever way 
was needful. So I was let alone as long as the 

59 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 
Commune lasted. I was able to visit my parents at 
Louveciennes, and, what was more, | loaned my pass 
to many of my friends whose business took them out of 
town. 

Nor did Rigault stop there. Every time we met, he 
was at great pains to convert me to the beauties of the 
communal system. 

“But, my good friend,’ I said to him one day, “you 
don’t know what you're talking about. You ought to 
pray for the Commune to fall, instead. Don’t you 
realize that if the Commune is victorious, your satiated 
Communards will become worse bourgeois than the 
others? But if the Commune is defeated, just watch 
the tricks the Versaillais will use to keep themselves 
in power .. . free bread, cake in place of bread... 
the People King!” 


60 


CHAPTER SEVEN 
THE EXHIBITIONS OF THE IMPRESSIONISTS 


ReENoiR: When order was restored in Paris, I took a 
studio in the Rue Notre Dame des Champs. About the 
same time I got some decorations to do in the house of 
Prince Bibesco, which enabled me to spend the summer 
at Celle-Saint-Cloud. I did the Henriot Family there. 
On returning to Paris with the first cold weather, I 
commenced my big equestrian canvas, for which the 
wife of a certain Captain Darras had consented to pose. 
I sent it to the Salon and it was refused. 

“IT told you so,” said Captain Darras triumphantly. 
“Now if you had only listened tome...” The colour 
had literally taken his breath away. While the sittings 
were going on, he was for ever saying: “Who ever saw 
a blue horse!” | 

But in spite of the sorry opinion he had of my paint- 
ing, he was none the less of great service to me in every 
way. It was due to him, in his capacity of aide-de- 
camp to General Barrail, that I secured the Salle des 
Fétes in the Military School to paint the picture in. 
The Spring and the Mounted Trumpeter, which has dis- 
appeared, were of about the same period. 

It was in 1873 that one of the most important events 
of my life took place: I made the acquaintance of 

61 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


Durand-Ruel, the first dealer—the only one, in fact, 
for many a long year—who believed in me. At that 
time I left my studio in the Rue Notre Dame des 
Champs to go over to the Right Bank, where I have 
since lived permanently. It is true that, through many 
associations, I had a strong attachment to the Left 
Bank; but I instinctively foresaw the danger of absorb- 
ing too much of that atmosphere which Degas defined 
so Well when he said: ‘No doubt Fantin-Latour’s work 
is all right, but it is a little too Latin-Quarter!” 

In 1873, feeling that I had really “arrived,” I rented 
a studio in the Rue Saint-Georges. It was certainly a 
great success. The same year I went to Argenteuil, 
where I worked with Monet. I did quite a few studies 
there, among them Monet Painting Dablias. At Ar- 
genteuil I also met the painter Caillebotte, the first 
“protector” of the Impressionists. He did not buy our 
pictures as a speculation. His sole idea was to help his 
friends as much as possible. And this he did admi- 
rably, for he took only the things which were unsalable. 

Vollard: What about the exhibition organized in 
1874 under the name of “Society of Painters, Sculptors 
and Graversr”’ 

R.; The title in no way indicated the tendencies of 
the exhibitors; but I was the one who objected to using 
a title with a more precise meaning. I was afraid that 
if it were called the “Somebodies” or “The So-and-Sos” 
or even “The Thirty-Nine,” the critics would immedi- 
ately start talking of a “new school,’ when all that we 
were really after, within the limits of our abilities, was 
to try to induce painters in general to get in line and 

62 


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(I88I1) TIVAIONOd LV NAW.LVOd AHL JO NOFHONNT 








EXHIBITIONS OF THE IMPRESSIONISTS 


follow the Masters, if they did not wish to see painting 
definitely go by the board. “Getting in line’ meant, 
you understand, relearning a forgotten craft. Except 
for Delacroix, Ingres and Courbet, who had flourished 
so miraculously after the Revolution, painting had 
fallen into the worst sort of banality. Everyone 
was busy copying everyone else, and Nature was 
lost in the shuffle. 

V.: If it was as bad as that, Couture must have 
seemed like an innovator. 

R.; | should say so—almost a_ revolutionary! 

Those who flattered themselves on being “advanced” 
hailed Couture as their leader. His famous Roman 
Orgy had come on the scene in 1847 like a thunder- 
bolt. They believed they had found in Couture a com- 
bination of Ingres and Delacroix, which the critics had 
vainly hoped for from Chasseriau. 
_ For, in the last analysis, everything that was being 
painted was merely rule of thumb or cheap tinsel—it 
was considered frightfully daring to take figures from 
David and dress them up in modern clothes. There- 
fore it was inevitable that the younger generation 
should go back to simple things. How could it have 
been otherwiser It cannot be said too often that to 
practise an art, you must begin with the ABC’s of 
that art. 

V.: But how did the “Society of Painters, Sculptors 
and Gravers’ become the “Impressionists” P 

R.: The name “Impressionists” came spontaneously 
from the public, who had been both amused and angered 
by one of the pictures on exhibition: an early morning 

63 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


landscape by Claude Monet entitled Impression. By 
the name “Impressionists,” they did not intend to con- 
vey the idea of new researches in art, but merely a group 
of painters who were content to record impressions. 

In 1877, when I exhibited once more with a part of 
the same group in Rue Lepeletier, it was | again who in- 
sisted on keeping this name “Impressionists” which had 
put us in the limelight. It served to explain our 
attitude to the layman, and hence nobody was de- 
ceived: ‘Here is our work. We know you don't like 
it. If you come in, so much the worse for you; no 
money refunded.” 

We were full of good intentions, but as yet were grop- 
ing in the dark. Our struggles would perhaps have 
gone unnoticed, to the immense good of all, if it had 
not been for the critics and their “literature’—born en- 
emies of the plastic arts. The public, even some of the 
painters themselves, were finally made to swallow a lot 
of nonsense about a “new art’! What on earth is the 
difference whether you paint in black and white, as 
Manet did under Spanish influence, or light upon light, 
as he did later under the influence of Claude Monet? 
Of course I do not mean to say that the artist’s tem- 
perament has nothing to do with the method he em- 
ploys. There is no doubt that Manet was surer of 
himself with black and white than with high-keyed 
colours. 

V.: I have never heard of a single person who pre- 
fers Manet’s dark manner to his light. But how did 
Manet come to be regarded as a pioneer, when his first 
canvases were so directly inspired by the galleries? 

64 


EXHIBITIONS OF THE IMPRESSIONISTS 


R.: He was the first to establish a simple formula, 
such as we were all trying to find until we could discover 
a better. 

V.: The “Impressionists” had less luck in 1877 than 
with their first exhibition in 1874, didn’t they? 

R.: Yes, much less. The first exhibition was 
dubbed an art student’s joke; the next time the public 
declared that the joke had gone too far. Perhaps if 
we had been shrewder we might have been able to con- 
ciliate the “connoisseurs” by painting subjects borrowed 
from history. What shocked people most of all was 
that they could find nothing in our pictures that 
was reminiscent of the galleries. To learn our craft, 
you see, we had to place our models in an atmosphere 
which was familiar to us. Can you see me painting a 
Nebuchadnezzar at a café table, or The Mother of the 
Gracchi in a box at the operar 

Nothing is so disconcerting as simplicity. I remem- 
ber the indignation of Jules Dupré at one of our exhibi- 
tions. “To-day,” he said bitterly, “one paints what one 
sees. . . . One doesn’t even prepare the canvas... . 
Are these the great masters?” 

V.: How did the “great masters” prepare their can- 
vases? 

R.: Dupré was referring to the minium preparations 
so much in vogue with the Barbizon School. It was be- 
lieved that preparing the canvas in this way gave 
“sonority” to the painting, which was quite true in prin- 
ciple; but the “great masters’ of that time, for all their 
minium, only succeeded in producing work which lacked 
sonority, and which cracked all over into the bargain. 

65 7 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


What will pictures such as the Angelus * look like fifty 
years from now? The Duprés are already melting 
down over their frames. 

What an amazing period that was! Those people 
spent three quarters of their time with their heads in 
the clouds. The subject had to crystallize in their 
minds before it could be put on canvas. One continu- 
ally heard such nonsense as: “The Master is over- 
working himself; he has been dreaming away in the 
forest for three days now!” 

They couldn’t even make a living with their literary 
pictures! Aside from a few like Dupré and Daubigny, 
and especially Millet, who were successful, what about 
the gang of poor devils who took the artist-legend of 
“dreamer” and “thinker” seriously, and sat with their 
heads in their hands in front of canvases that they never 
touched? You can imagine how those people scorned 
us, because we were getting paint on our canvases, and 
because, like the old masters, we were trying to paint in 
joyous tones and carefully eliminate all “literature” 
from our pictures. 

V.: Didn’t the Impressionists allow themselves to 
be too much influenced by foreign schools? Japanese 
art, for instance? 

R.: Unfortunately, yes, in the beginning. Japanese 

1] arrived one day at Lewis Brown’s (about 1888) to find him in 
a state of great excitement. “I used to know Millet’s Angelus when 
it was all cracked from top to bottom,” he declared. “And now I 
have just seen it again, and it looks like new.” But recently (1920) 
a newspaper again raised the alarm that the Angelus was “beginning” 
to crack. So much for the work of the picture-restorers. (Author’s 


Note.) 
66 


EXHIBITIONS OF THE IMPRESSIONISTS 


prints are certainly most interesting, as Japanese 
prints . . . that is to say, on condition they stay in 
Japan. No people should appropriate what does not 
belong to their own race, if they don’t want to make 
themselves ridiculous. If they do, they produce noth- 
ing but a kind of bastard art, with no real character. 
Certain critics are beginning to claim me as a true mem- 
ber of the French School. I am glad of that, not be- 
cause | think that that school is superior to the others, 
but because, being a Frenchman, I ought to represent 
my own country. 

V.: You were talking just now about the exhibition 
in 1877. You have said nothing about the pictures 
painted from 1874 to 1877. 

R.: I recall the Dancing-Girl, the Moulin de la Ga- 
lette and La Loge—the latter done I think in 1874, and 
then, let me see... The Woman with the Cup of 
Chocolate. I'll try to remember others for you some 
time again. I have painted so many pictures in my 
life, that I cannot always recall what year I did them. 

V.: 1 remember once having seen two amateurs at 
an exhibition of your work at Durand-Ruel’s. One of 
them was explaining to the other the qualities, and no 
doubt the faults, in each canvas. But when he came to 
La Loge, he said: “There’s nothing to do but take off 
your hat to that.” 

R.: Oh, yes, I know all about those protectors of the 
arts who have the greatest respect for pictures after the 
artist has nearly died of hunger while painting them. 
In the case of La Loge, in fact, I had gone everywhere 
trying in vain to get five hundred francs for it, when I 

67 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 
stumbled on Pere Martin, an old dealer who had at last 
been won over to Impressionism. I could only squeeze 
four hundred and twenty-five francs out of him, but 
I was only too glad to get that! Pére Martin con- 
sidered the price far and away too high—but it wasn’t 
possible for me to come down a sou, for it was just the 
amount I needed for my rent, and I had no other re- 
sources in sight. And as the dealer had a prospective 
purchaser for the picture, he had to accept my terms. 
But he never forgave me for having taken advantage of 
the situation on that day by making him hand over so 
much money for a single canvas! 

His luck soon went from bad to worse. His pro- 
tégé Jongkind, who had heretofore sold him canvases 
at the uniform price of ten francs apiece, suddenly be- 
came famous. One day, all unsuspecting, Martin went 
to see him. “Well, Martin, my friend,’ said Jongkind, 
rubbing his hands, “no more pictures in the hundreds, 
you know. I’m in the thousands now.” 

Poor old Martin went off fairly gasping. Suddenly 
he discovered that he had forgotten his famous black 
bag which was always with him on his peregrinations, 
for he was perpetually on the look-out for old 
iron and other “bargains” that could be picked up 
en route. You can imagine his indignation when he 
returned and found Jongkind in the midst of a most 
elaborate meal. ‘The bastard!” he said to me after- 
wards. “He eats asparagus in the dead of winter!” 

My friendship with Jongkind is one of the pleasantest 
memories of my youth. I have never in my life 
met such a gay, happy-go-lucky fellow. His great 

68 


SID “UO1JIAJOD Jany-puving 
(€/81) TINA.LNADUV LV ANIES FHL 








EXHIBITIONS OF THE IMPRESSIONISTS 
height and his beatific smile permitted him to do ec- 
centric things without in the least offending people. 
One day we were sitting quietly in front of a café, when 
Jongkind suddenly jumped up and planted his ponder- 
ous form in front of an astounded pedestrian. “You 
don’t know who I am?” he cried in his ridiculous Dutch- 
French jargon. “Impossible! Why, I’m Jongkind the 
Great!” 

There was another dealer in Montmartre besides 
Martin who handled very fine pictures. His name was 
Portier. Did you ever know him, Vollard? He had 
an ingenious way of disposing of his wares. 

“Don’t buy that picture!’ he would say. “It’s much 
too expensive!” 

Of course the collector usually bought it. It must be 
said that two thousand francs was still considered ex- 
pensive in 1895 for a first-class Manet. 

Portier had a second floor in the Rue Lepic, and Pére 
Martin a ground floor at the foot of the Rue des 
Martyrs. They were both wretched places, but what 
magnificent canvases they had to show! all the 
Impressionist School, not to mention Corot, Delacroix, 
Daumier, and what not! Rouart bought the greater 
part of his collection through Pere Martin, among them 
Corot’s famous Woman in Blue, for which he paid 
three thousand francs. It was a scandalous price at the 
time. And it was this picture that the Friends of the 
Louvre later bid up so high at the Rouart sale. 





Among the pictures I painted in the Rue Saint- 
Georges studio, I remember a Czrcus, with little girls 
69 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 
juggling oranges; a life-size portrait of Félix Bouchor, 
the poet; a pastel of Madame Cordey; and, finally, The 
Wife and Children of Monet, in Monet’s garden at 
Argenteuil. I arrived at his house just at the moment 
that Manet, who was also a guest, was making prep- 
arations to do the same subject; with the models all 
ready, I could not let such a fine chance slip. When I 
had gone, Manet turned to his host and said: 

“You’re a good friend of Renoir; you ought to advise 
him to give up painting. You can see for yourself that 
he hasn't the ghost of a show.” 


70 


CHAPTER EIGHT 
“SERIOUS” PURCHASERS 


Renoir: My first “serious” patrons came from among 
my friends—friends like S., whom you used to know. 
There’s a real friend for you! He bought my pictures 
for the sole purpose of being agreeable; he cared very 
little about my painting for its own sake, and besides, 
he always ran the risk of incurring the displeasure of 
his wife if he spent three or four hundred francs for a 
thing which was useless—and ugly to boot. You re- 
member that canvas of a Woman with Her Finger on 
Her Lips? S. must have paid me about 250 francs 
for it. For a long time it was relegated to a hallway 
by Madame S. She found the picture a little expensive, 
a little vulgar, and, furthermore, she felt that the pose 
was not quite in good taste. But one day when Ma- 
dame S. repeated to me for the twentieth time, “That 
picture! ...” I had the satisfaction of being able to 
reply: 

“Madame, you will soon be rid of it, for my friend 
Caillebotte has commissioned me to offer your husband 
three times the price he paid; and as I believe Monsieur 
S. isn’t exactly keen about it either # 

“But I never said that J didn’t like the picture,” 
protested Madame S. “Except for certain little things 


—dquite unimportant...” 
71 





RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


I should like to have known what those “unimportant 
little things’ were, but Madame S. sent for the butler 
without further explanation, commanded him to bring 
hammer and nails, and had my picture hung in the 
best light in the drawing-room! 

Not that Madame S. was the kind of person to be 
lured by the prospect of making a profit. She was not 
like her friend, Madame N., for instance. Madame N. 
had bought a little Head of a Child, for five louis. A 
few years afterwards, someone said to her: 

“Ah! you have a Renoir, I see.” 

“Yes,” replied Madame N.; “that is to say, five louis 
not working.” 

“Five!” echoed the other. “You can add a zero to 
that.” 

Madame N. was prostrated to think that so much 
money lay unproductive. So when her husband came 
home, the picture was already down off the wall. 

“Quick! Take that to Durand-Ruels as fast as you 
can!” and she put it under his arm. 

Dear old Madame N.! I remember one day finding 
her in tears. “Would you believe it, Monsieur Renoir? 
My husband has deceived me after thirty years of 
fidelity!” | 

Thirty years! I felt that was a bit extravagant... . 
But, however that may be, I agreed that it was a 
magnificent record. 

“But that isn’t all,’ she wailed. “I’ve just found 
out that during our vacation in the country the creature 
received her five hundred a month regularly .. . and 
for doing nothing, too!” 

72 


“SERIOUS” PURCHASERS 


It was through S. that I got to know some of my other 
“patrons,” such as Deudon, Ephrussi, and Bérard... . 
Bérard came to my studio one day with the banker 
Pillet-Will, who happened to be seeking a portraitist. 
He said I wouldn’t do. 

“I don’t know anything about art, you understand, 
but even if I did, my position is such that I am forced 
to have pictures in my home by artists who sell at high 
prices. So I shall have to try Bouguereau, unless I can 
find a still higher-class artist.” 

Fortunately there were other amateurs, such as 
Monsieur de Bellio, who didn’t mind having less ex- 
pensive pictures about them. But they were so excep- 
tional that we always had to “touch” the same ones. 
Every time one of us was in urgent need of a couple of 
hundred francs, he would run to the Café Riche at 
lunch-time with a picture. One was sure to find 
Monsieur de Bellio there, and he would buy it without 
even looking at it. Of course his apartment was soon 
full to overflowing at that rate, so he finally had to rent 
a vacant room to put his canvases in. If Monsieur de 
Bellio left behind him an enormous fortune in pictures 
that cost him next to nothing, at least you can be sure 
it was no fault of his. Like Caillebotte, he used to 
buy all the stuff we had in our studios that had been 
ordered and never called for. 

Some other pictures come to my mind from the Rue 
Saint-Georges days—the Déjeuner, which is now in the 
Frankfort Museum, and the Woman with a Cup of 
Chocolate, a type of woman that I used to love to 
paint. Her name was Marguerite. About the same 

73 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


time I had another model called Nini, a beautiful girl 
too, and very charming; but I preferred Marguerite. 
Nini always seemed to me a sort of Belgian counterfeit. 

Vollard: What kind of dress do you like to paint 
best? 

R.: Of course I prefer the nude. But when I have 
to paint a woman clothed, I like the “princess” gown 
it gives such a lovely, sinuous line to the body. 

I haven’t spoken to you about the Moulin de la 
Galette... That dates back to the Rue Saint-Georges 
days also [1875]. One day Franc-Lamy, while look- 
ing over the canvases which were stacked against the 
wall in my studio, discovered a sketch of the Moulin 
de la Galette, made from memory. 

“You really must do this picture!” he cried. 

It was a complicated business . . . models to find, 
and a garden. . . . I had the good luck just at this time 
to secure a commission that was royally paid: a por- 
trait of a woman and her two little daughters. It 
brought me 1200 francs. So I rented a house in Mont- 
martre, surrounded by a large garden, for a hundred 
francs a month. It was there that I painted the 
Moulin, The Swing, After the Concert, the Torso of 
Anna. . . . Lord knows how often I have been taken to 
task for the violet shadows in the last picture! 

“Your model must have had the small-pox!” one art 
critic said to me. Somehow one felt that he used 





1A famous dancing-place of former days in Montmartre. It is 
still in existence but has lost much of its charm. Renoir’s painting 
is one of the principal canvases in the Caillebotte collection in the 
Luxembourg Museum. (Trans. Note.) ‘ 


74 


“SERIOUS” PURCHASERS 


the word “small” to keep from being thought indecorous. 

It was also in this garden that I made the various 
portraits of Mademoiselle Samary. She was a charming 
girl. And what a beautiful skin she had! She posi- 
tively radiated light from within! 

As luck would have it, I found some girls at the 
Moulin de a Galette, like the two in the foreground 
of my picture, who asked nothing better than to pose. 
~ One of them used to write to me about her appoint- 
ments on gilt-edged note-paper. I used to see her de- 
livering milk in Montmartre. One day I learned that 
she had a little apartment which a box-holder at the 
opera had furnished for her. But her mother had made 
her promise that she would not give up her job. At 
first | was afraid that the more or less serious lovers of 
these models whom I had taken from their nest at the 
Moulin de la Galette would forbid their “wives” to 
come to the studio. But they were good sports too; I 
even got some of them to pose. But you mustn’t think 
that these girls gave themselves to anyone who hap- 
pened along. There was fierce virtue among some of 
these children of the street. I recall one little girl, just 
the type I liked, who had stopped in front of a jewellery 
shop on the Rue de la Paix, her eyes wide open with 
ecstasy. I was with Deudon and Baron Rothschild, a 
friend of his. Rothschild said: 

“Watch me make that child come to terms.” 

He went up to her. 

“Mademoiselle, would you like to have that ring?” 

At this the girl began to scream so loudly that a 
gendarme appeared and escorted the lot of us to the 

> 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


police station. When she had explained her grievance, 
the commissaire, after making all sorts of excuses for 
his officer's stupidity, gave our little ingénue a scolding 
of the first order. As we went off we caught such 
snatches as: | 

“Little goose! .. . The idea! . . . Just as the baron 


3 


Was... 


V.: I saw your picture of Needle Women at a recent 
exhibition. You never found such queens as those at 
the Moulin de la Galette. When was it painted? 

R.: That picture is not so very old. [About 1900- 
1905.] As for your “queens,” they’re nothing but our 
housemaids. . . . I remember another canvas of the 
Moulin de la Galette period representing a Girl in a 
Blue Apron. It was also painted in the garden at 
Montmartre. 

V.: And the dance panels in the Durand-Ruel col- 
lection? 

R.: Those were done later than the Moulin. My 
wife posed for one of the figures. The other woman 
was a model, Suzanne Valadon,? who later went in for 
painting herself. My friend Lauth posed for the two 
male figures. He appears also in the Boatman at 
Bougival with Lestringuez and Ephrussi. 

V.: The sale that you organized at the Hotel Drouot 


2 One of the best-known of the present-day French woman painters. 
See the monograph on her work in the Peintres Francais Nouveaux 
series, published by La Nouvelle Revue Francaise. Her son, Maurice 
Utrillo, is one of the leaders among the younger artists. (Trans. 
Note.) 

76 


(6881) MOODAT.LLAHS GNV AYOdHILLVA 








a 


“SERIOUS” PURCHASERS 
along with Claude Monet, Sisley and Berthe Morisot, 
took place about this time, did it not? 

R.: When I received the twelve-hundred-franc com- 
mission which enabled me to rent the garden on Rue 
Cortot, I said to myself: ‘Perhaps there are some 
other good people who might be disposed to pay us 
twelve hundred francs for our pictures, if we only knew 
where to find them! Let’s make a bold move and have 
a sale at the Hotel Drouot!” 

The others shared my enthusiasm for the plan. We 
got together twenty choice canvases—at least we 
thought them choice. The auction brought 2,150 
francs! After it was over, the expenses had not even 
been covered; we actually owed money to the auction- 
eers! A certain Monsieur Hazard had had the courage 
_ to bid one of my pictures, a Pont-Neuf, up to three hun- 
dred francs.* But nobody followed his example. 

But that sale turned out well for me in the end. 
Through it I made the acquaintance of Monsieur 
Choquet. He was a ministry employé, with only very 
modest resources, who had succeeded in getting together 
a most remarkable collection. It is quite true that at 
that time—and even much later—it was not necessary 
for a collector to be very rich. A little taste was suf- 
ficient. 

Monsieur Choquet had dropped in at the Hotel 
Drouot by chance during the exhibition of our pic- 
tures preceding the sale. He felt that he found some 
resemblance to the work of Delacroix, his god, in my 


3 At the Hazard Sale (1919), this same Pont-Neuf brought nearly 
100,000 francs. (Author’s Note.) 


77 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


canvases. He wrote to me the very evening of the sale, 
paying my work all sorts of compliments and asking 
if I would consent to do the portrait of Madame 
Choquet; I accepted immediately. Not that I often re- 
fuse portrait commissions. When there is too much 
sham about the sitter, I take it by way of penance; it 
is good for a painter to do some dull job from time to 
time. Take the portrait of Madame L., for example. 
I told her I didn’t know how to paint wild animals! 
But that was not the case with Madame Choquet. If 
you have seen that portrait, Vollard, perhaps you have 
noticed a copy of a Delacroix at the top of the picture? 
It was part of Choquet’s collection. Choquet himself 
asked me to put it in. 

“T want to have you both together, you and Dela- 
croix!” he said. 

I need not tell you that as soon as I knew Monsieur 
Choquet well enough, I got him to buy a Cézanne. | 
took him to Pére Tanguy’s, where he bought a little 
study of Nudes. He was delighted with his acquisition, 
and while we were going back to his home, he remarked: 

“Won't that look well between a Delacroix and a 
Courbet!” 

But just as he was about to ring the bell, he stopped 
short. 

“T wonder what Marie will say?” he said dubiously. 
Then: ‘Listen, Renoir, do me a favour. Suppose you 
tell my wife that the Cézanne belongs to you, and when 
you leave, forget to take it with you; that will give 
Marie time to get used to it before I confess that it 


belongs to me.” 
78 


“SERIOUS” PURCHASERS 


This little ruse met with complete success, and 
Madame Choquet, to please her husband, took to 
Cézanne’s work very quickly. 

As for Monsieur Choquet, his admiration for Gézantie, 
whom I soon brought to him in person, became so great 
that before long one could not mention the name of 
any artist in his presence without his crying: “And 
Cézanne?” 

If you only could have heard Choquet tell how, 
during a stay in his native city of Lille, he “educated” 
his fellow citizens, who were at that time very proud of 
the Parisian laurels of another native of their town, 
Carolus Duran!” 

“Carolisse Duran?’ he would say, blankly, if anyone 
mentioned the author of the Woman with a Glove. 
“Carolusse Diiran? Good Lord, no! I never heard of 
that name in Paris. Are you quite sure you're not 
mistaken? Cézanne, Renoir and Monet are the artists 
all Paris is talking about. But your Caroltsse 
Surely you must have made a mistake.” 

As for my other patrons, Vollard, have you ever seen 
the collection of Monsieur de Bellio, of whom I was 
speaking a while ago? He has a little portrait that I 
did of myself. For some reason or other, everybody 
praises it nowadays. It’s an unimportant little sketch. 
I had thrown it in the trash-basket at the time, but 
Monsieur Choquet asked me to let him take it. I was 
ashamed that it wasn’t better. But a few days later 
he brought me a thousand francs. Monsieur de Bellio 
had gone crazy over that bit of canvas, and it was he 
who had given the thousand for it. 

79 





RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


There you have the patrons of the day. Of course 
I must admit that they were the exception, even then. 
For every Choquet, for every de Bellio, Caillebotte or 
Bérard, there were I don’t know how many of the other 
kind. . . . And the downright ferocity of the general 
public! 

V.: I nearly forgot to ask you about the portrait of 

Madame Daudet. Does that belong to the period of 
the Moulin de la Galette? 

R.: 1876, to be exact. I went to spend a month 
with Daudet at Champrosay. At the same time I did 
the portrait of Young Daudet in the Garden and a 
Banks of the Seine, where the river skirts the town. 

Franc-Lamy one day showed me a letter I had written 
to him saying: “I send you a rose plucked from the 
tomb of Delacroix at Champrosay.”’ How long ago all 
that seems! ... 


CHAPTER NINE 


THE CAFE GUERBOIS, THE NOUVELLE 
ATHENES, THE CAFE TORTONI 


Renoir: Up to 1870 the Impressionists, and the men 
of letters who had appointed themselves champions of 
“plein-air” painting, used to forgather at the Cafe 
Guerbois, situated at the foot of the Avenue de Clichy. 
Fantin-Latour has painted a picture called A Studio in 
the Batignolles,1 which shows some of the habitués of 
the Café Guerbois gathered about Edouard Manet, 
seated at his easel. The group consists of Zola, Maitre, 
Astruc, Bazille, Claude Monet, Scholderer, a foreign 
painter and friend of Fantin, and myself. 

After 1870 we abandoned the Café Guerbois, and 
along about 1878 we started going to the Nouvelle 
Athenes. The rival of the Nouvelle Athenes was the 
Café Tortoni, quite a celebrated place on the Boule- 
vard. Every afternoon from five to seven Aurélien 
Scholl, Albert Wolff and other Parisian celebrities were 
to be seen there, among them Pertuiset, the lion-hunter. 
Have you ever seen Manet’s portrait of Pertuiset? 
The lion looks as if he’d just fallen out of bed, and the 
great hunter has a pop-gun that wouldn’t kill a sparrow! 
Everybody thinks Manet couldn’t paint a lion, but 


1In the Luxembourg Museum. 


81 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 
the joke is on the public. Manet was just poking fun 
at a public hero. 

Vollard: Did you know Albert Wolff? 

R.; Very slightly. I remember one day a great dis- 
cussion which took place at Tortoni’s between Wolff 
and another man. . . . It was Robert-Fleury, I believe. 
. . . They were arguing about whether it was better to 
varnish a painting immediately, as Blaise Desgoffe did, 
or to leave it to time, as Vollon did! 

V.: [can just see Cézanne getting up in the middle 
of such a discussion and growling: “Pack of milk- 
sops!”’ 

R.: Cézanne scarcely ever went down as far as the 
Boulevards, and I did not see him even at the Café 
Guerbois or the Nouvelle Athénes more than three or 
four times. And even then he had to be dragged there 
by Cabaner. 

V.: You haven’t told me how Manet and Degas got 
along together. 

R.: They were on very good terms. They admired 
each other as artists, and enjoyed each other’s com- 
panionship. Beneath Manet’s somewhat “Boulevard” 
manners, Degas found a man of good education and of 
good middle-class principles like his own. But, as with 
all great friendships, theirs was not without frequent 
quarrels and reconciliations. After one dispute Degas 
wrote to Manet: “Sir, | am sending back your Plums.” 
And Manet returned the compliment by sending back 
the portrait of himself and his wife which Degas had 
just made. It was this portrait that caused their most 
serious quarrel. The picture represented Manet half 

82 


BOHEMIAN CAFES 


stretched out on a sofa, and Madame Manet at the 
piano inacorner. Manet decided that he would appear 
to better advantage alone, and calmly removed all of 
Madame Manet except the edge of her skirt. You know 
how Degas disliked having his work tampered with; 
and what a fuss he used to make if his “garden frames,’ 
as Whistler called them, were ever changed for gold 
pues... 

Degas’ picture, however, gave Manet the theme for 
his masterpiece, Madame Manet at the Piano. Every- 
body knows how easily Manet could be influenced. He 
has been called “an imitator with genius.” But when 
he really let himself go . . . I saw in a window in Rue 
Laffitte one of those little sketches of a woman’s legs 
that Manet used to dash off in the street. . . . It was 
unique! 

As I said before, both Degas and Manet belonged to 
the respectable Parisian bourgeoisie. But there was 
another curious element in Manet, a strain of playful- 
ness which made him constantly try to mystify his 
public. 3 

They tell how a pompous member of the Institute 
was introduced to Manet one day and cried, “Ah, 
Monsieur Manet, indeed! How interesting! I am 
preparing an elaborate study of the modern masters, 
and perhaps you can help me. You knew the great 
Couture, I believe!” | 

“Why, yes,’ Manet replied. “There was a certain 
rite very highly thought of in the Master’s studio, which 
particularly impressed me. The pupils had a flute 
which they were accustomed to play by inserting 

83 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 
it in the rear. Whenever a notable visitor would come 
to the studio, they never failed to inform him that tra- 
dition required all those who were admitted to Couture’s 
to blow the flute by this unique method!” 

Degas liked to mystify people, too. I have seen him 
amuse himself like a schoolboy by puffing up a great 
reputation for some artist or other whose fame, in the 
ordinary course of events, was certain to perish the 
following week. 

He fooled me badly once. One day I was on the 
driver's box of an omnibus, and Degas, who was cross- 
ing the street, shouted to me through his hands: “Be 
sure to go and see Count Lepic’s exhibition!” 

I went. Very conscientiously I looked for something 
of interest. When I met Degas again, I said: “What 
about your Lepic exhibition r”’ 

“It’s fine, isn’t it? A great deal of talent,’ Degas 
replied. “It’s too bad he’s such a light weight!” 


V.: ve heard Lautrec compared with Degas... . 

R.:, Ridiculous! Lautrec did some very fine posters, 
but that’s about all. . . . Just compare their paintings 
of cocottes ... why, they’re worlds apart! Lautrec 
just painted a prostitute, while Degas painted all 
prostitutes rolled into one. Lautrec’s prostitutes are 
vicious . . . Degas’ never. Have you ever seen The 
Patronne’s Birthday? It’s superb! 

When others paint a bawdy house, the result is usually 
pornographic—always sad to the point of despair. 
Degas is the only painter who can combine a certain 
joyousness and the rhythm of an Egyptian bas-relief in 

84 


BOHEMIAN CAFES 


a, subject of that kind. That chaste, half-religious 
side, which makes his work so great, is at its best when 
he paints those poor girls. 

V.: One day I saw a Woman in a Tub by Degas in 
a window on the Avenue de |’Opéra. There was a man 
in front of it, tracing an imaginary drawing in the air 
with his thumb. He must have been a painter, for as 
I paused I heard him say to himself: “A woman’s torso 
like that is as important as the Sermon on the Mount.” 

R.; He must have been a critic. A painter would 
never talk that way. 

V.: Just then a carpenter came along. He also 
stopped in front of the nude and exclaimed: “My 
God! I wouldn’t like to sleep with that wench!” 

R.: The carpenter was right. Art is no joking 
matter. 

V.: Did you ever have a chance to watch Degas 
make his etchings? 

R.: I used to go to Cadard’s, usually after dinner, 
and watch him pull his impressions—I don’t dare say 
etchings—people laugh when you call them that. The 
specialists are always ready to tell you that they’re full 
of tricks ... that the man didn’t know the first 
principles of aqua-forte. But they’re beautiful, just 
the same. 

V.: But I have always heard you say that an artist 
ought to know his craft from the ground up .. . 

R.; Yes, but I don’t mean that fly-speck technique 
they call modern engraving. Some of Rembrandt’s 
finest etchings look as if they had been done with a 
stick of wood or the point of a nail. You can hardly 

85 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


say that Rembrandt didn’t know his business! It was 
just because he knew it from start to finish that he was 
not obliged to use all those fancy tools which get be- 
tween the artist’s thought and his execution, and make 
a modern engraver's studio look like a dental parlour. 

V.: What about Degas as a painter? 

R.: I recently saw a drawing by Degas in a dealer’s 
window—a simple charcoal outline, in a gold frame 
which would have killed anything else. But it held its © 
own superbly. I’ve never seen a finer drawing. 

V.: Degas as a colorist, I mean. 

R.: Well, look at his pastels. Just to think that 
with a medium so very disagreeable to handle, he was 
able to obtain the freshness of a fresco! When 
he had that extraordinary exhibition of his in 1885 at 
Durand-Ruel’s, I was right in the midst of my experi- 
ments with frescoes in oil. I was completely bowled 
over by that show. 

V.: But what I’m trying to get at is what you think 
of Degas as a painter in oils... . 

R. (interrupting): Look, Vollard. 

(We had arrived at the Place de Opéra. He pointed 
to Carpeaux’s group of the Dance.) 

Why, it’s in perfect condition! Who was it told me 
that that group was falling to piecesr I really haven't 
anything against Carpeaux, but I like everything to be 
in its place. It’s all right to carry on about that kind 
of sculpture, since everybody likes it; I don’t see any 
harm in that, but if they would only take those drunken 
women away and put them somewhere else . . . Danc- 
ing as taught at the opera is a tradition, it is something 

86 





MOTHER AND CHILD (1888) 


Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pa. 


<P of he 





BOHEMIAN CAFES 


noble; it isn’t the Can Can. . . . To think that we’re 
living in an age that has produced a sculptor to equal 
the ancients! But there’s no danger of bis ever getting 
commissions... . 

V.: Rodin has just had an order for the Thinker. 
And then there’s his Victor Hugo and his Gates of 
Fels. 32. 

R. (impatiently): Who said anything about 
Rodinr Why, Degas is the greatest living sculptor! 
You should have seen a bas-relief of his . . . he just 
let it crumble to pieces... it was beautiful as an 
antique. And that ballet dancer in wax! ... the 
mouth . . . just a suggestion, but what drawing! 

What’s the name of that old fool . . . that friend of 
Degas who does nudes that look as if they’re moulded 
on a living model ?—probably are, too... . | never 
can remember names! Well, never mind. He kept 
after Degas until he finished that mouth, and of course 
he spoiled it. 

Have you seen his extraordinary bust of Zan- 
domeneghi? Degas always pretended that it wasn’t 
finished so he wouldn’t have to show it... . 

V.: I thought Degas had quarrelled with Zando- 
meneghi. 

R.: They used to be intimate. But Degas offended 
him terribly one day. In asking him to come to pose, 
Degas remarked: “You have nothing to do, Zando- 
meneghi ...” The Italian, on the contrary, felt that 
he had a good deal to do, and he replied haughtily: 
“That is no way to talk to a Venetian.” 

2 Renoir was referring to Bartholomé. 


87 


CHAPTER TEN 
THE SALON OF MADAME CHARPENTIER 


Renoir: The salon of Madame Charpentier, the pub- 
lisher’s wife, was the rendezvous of all the celebrities 
that Paris had in the world of politics, letters, and art. 
The familiar figures of the house were such people as 
Daudet, Zola, Spuller, the two Coquelins, Flaubert, and 
Edmond de Goncourt. De Goncourt was cold, pre- 
tentious, and sour. The portrait of him by Bracque- 
mond is very striking. 

Vollard: {heard about Goncourt’s quarrel with Zola 
from Guillemet. Goncourt suddenly stopped speaking 
to Zola, and even began talking about him behind his 
back. Zola was frightfully distressed, and had no idea 
what he had done to offend the Master. Charpentier, 
who was greatly upset because he could no longer get his 
two authors together at his house, tried to act as peace- 
maker. Goncourt was evasive. Charpentier therefore 
asked him bluntly: “Why don’t you try to meet Zola 
half-way?” 

At last a grand dinner of reconciliation took place; 
Goncourt was all the while very distant, so much so 
that, when the meal was over, Zola insisted on an 
explanation at any cost and dragged Goncourt into 

88 


MADAME CHARPENTIER’S SALON 


another room where they could be alone. Guillemet 
saw him emerge again looking very much perplexed. 

“Well, what’s up?” 

And Zola told him that Goncourt had been absurd 
enough to accuse him of plagiarism in taking the title 
Work for his latest novel, after the brothers Goncourt 
had published their Work of Francois Boucher! 

R.: I was going to tell you that I saw Cézanne also 
at Charpentier’s. He had come with Zola, but the 
place was too “‘social” for Cézanne. Whenever painting 
was discussed there, I made a point of saying, like 
Choquet: “and Cézanner” I repeated it so often that 
Zola began to think that I was advertising talent from 
his native town just to please him. “You are very kind 
to say nice things about my old friend,’ he said. “But, 
between you and me, what’s the good of trying to do 
anything for an obvious failure?’ 

When I protested, Zola replied: “Well, after all, you 
know painting isn’t in my line.” 

At Madame Charpentier’s I met Juliette Adam, Guy 
de Maupassant, and also that charming Madame 
Clapisson, of whom I did two portraits. Maupassant 
was then at the height of his fame, and his ever- 
increasing output filled Goncourt and even Zola with 
dismay. Their conversation always began something 
like this: “Ah, Maupassant! What a talented writer! 
But someone ought to warn him against the danger of 
producing too much.” 

I remember having seen Turgeniev at the Charpen- 
tiers, and many others whose names slip my mind. 
Then there was someone who always wore a red sash in 

89 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


order to attract attention. He was equally in evidence 
for his vehement assertions that museums are necessary 
for the education of the masses. 

The masses in the museums! That’s a good joke. 
One day I was sitting on a bench in the Louvre and | 
heard someone passing say: “Lord, what a face!” 

I supposed they were talking about me, and I won- 
dered what could be wrong. As I got up to go, other 
visitors came along, and I watched them self-consciously. 
They stopped right in front of the bench I had just 
left, and one of them exclaimed: “My God! Take a 
look at that mug, will your” 

It was the little Infanta Margherita of Velasquez! 


V.: The man with the red sash you were speaking of 
makes me think of Barbey d’Aurevilly. .. . 

R.: | met him once or twice. In spite of all the 
fancy costumes he affected, that man had a devilish 
charm. I remember that after seeing him for the first 
time I decided to get one of his books, but as soon as I 
saw that the illustrations were by that “Belgian 
Cabanel’’—you know whom I mean, Felicien Rops—I 
could never get up courage enough to read the text. 

To come back to Madame Charpentier: She did not 
stop at just inviting artists to her soirées; she got her 
husband to start a magazine for the defence of Im- 
pressionist art, called La Vie Moderne. We all col- 
laborated. We were to be paid out of the earnings; 
in other words, none of us got a single sou. But the 
worst part about it was that they made us draw on 
a kind of paper which we had to scrape in order to pro- 

90 


MADAME CHARPENTIER’S SALON 


duce the whites. I never could learn to use it properly. 
The editor-in-chief of La Vie Moderne was Bergerat. 
Later, when Charpentier deserted it, my young brother 
Edmond bought it out. But the paper was in its last 
throes and it was not long before it died completely. 

V.: You were telling me a little while ago about 
Zola. What do you think of his books? 

R.; Ihave always hated them. When you want to 
depict a certain milieu, you must, it seems to me, start 
by putting yourself in the shoes of your characters. 
Zola would glance out of the window and let it go at 
that. He imagined that he had described the common 
people once and for all when he said that they smelled 
bad. And as for the middle classes ... He could 
have done a fine book, not only as a historic record 
of a unique art movement, but also as a “human docu- 
ment’ (for that was the label under which he sold his 
goods), if he had only taken the trouble in Work to 
recount quite simply what he had seen and heard while 
he was with us in our studios; for in associating with 
us, he was really living the life of his characters! But 
at bottom Zola didn’t give a rap about representing his 
friends as they were, or, at any rate, emphasizing their 
good qualities. 

V.: Did you ever happen to meet Flaubert at Char- 
pentier’s? 

R.: | remember him very well; he looked like a 
retired army officer turned insurance agent. 

V.: What do you think of his writings? 

R.; ve skimmed through Madame Bovary. | 
can’t see anything in a story of an idiot whose wife 

9] 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


doesn’t know what she wants. After you have read 
those three hundred pages, you feel like saying to your- 
self: ‘Well, what of it?” 

V.: Didn’t you like the character of Homais, the 
apothecary? 

Renoir shrugged. 

V.: Guillemet told me how delighted certain friends 
of Flaubert’s were when the famous author of 
Salammbo, in the latter years of his life, began to 
flout clericalism and rage about the influence of the 
Jesuits, taking over his druggist’s whole political and 
philosophic baggage... . 

R.: [think Salammbé is a very fine book not so 
good, however, as Gautier’s Romance of the Mummy; 
in my opinion, that is the most perfect thing of its 
kind ever written. I am aware of the fact that many 
people have criticized Gautier because he wrote easily 
and joyously, as if he were telling a story for the fun of 
it. I have heard the same thing said about myself 
many times. One would think the only way of giving 
pleasure was to be tedious. France has turned Protes- 
tant, I tell you! And I do believe the public is still 
afraid they won’t get enough for their money. They in- 
sist on an artist sweating blood over a thing before 
they'll even look at it. What about those canvases 
Cézanne worked on a couple of hundred times? They 
look as if they’d been dashed off in a day! 

V.: You have not spoken of Huysmans. Didn’t he 
go to Madame Charpentier’s too? 

R.: I hardly ever saw Huysmans, even at the 
Nouvelle Athénes. He was a good fellow, but he was 

92 





MADAME CHARPENTIER’S SALON 


wrong in praising a picture for its subject rather than 
for its intrinsic merit. That is why he spoke of Degas, 
Rops, and Gustave Moreau all in the same breath. It’s 
incredible that Gustave Moreau could have been taken 
seriously! Why, he couldn’t even draw a foot! They 
talk so much about his scorn for the world simple 
laziness, to my way of thinking. But he certainly 
knew what he was about when he conceived the idea 
of painting with gold colours to take in the Jews! He 
even fooled Ephrussi, who I thought had more sense 
than that. I went to Ephrussi’s house one day and the 
first thing I laid my eyes on was a Gustave Moreau. 

V.: Didn’t you do a decoration for Madame Char- 
pentier’s salon? 

R.: I have always enjoyed doing decorations, even 
those I painted on the walls of cafés when I was a 
youngster. Unfortunately there was not much space left 
at the Charpentiers’, for the reception rooms were en- 
tirely decorated in Japanese style after the fashion of 
the day. Perhaps my horror of Japanese art comes 
from having seen so much of that kind of stuff. 

During the World’s Fair of 1889, my friend Burty 
took me to look at the Japanese prints. There were 
some very beautiful things, I must confess. But as I 
was leaving the room, I saw a Louis XIV arm-chair 
covered with a bit of the simplest tapestry imaginable; 
I could have hugged the thing! 

As there were no walls to decorate, Madame Char- 
pentier could only offer me two narrow panels on the 
staircase. I managed the job by doing two figures, a 
man and a woman, facing each other. When the work 

93 





RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


was finished, they asked for the judgment of the painter 
Henner, an old friend of the family. Taking me by 
both hands with that easy gentleness that Alsatians 
have, he said: “It’s fery goot, fery goot; dere is only 
one vault. De man should always be browner dan de 
voman.”’ 

Madame Charpentier bore a certain resemblance to 
Marie Antoinette. Consequently there was never a 
fancy dress ball that she did not appear as the martyred 
queen, which made even her best friends sick with 
jealousy. Since she was rather petite, one of them 
observed, one day: ‘‘Poor Marie Antoinette has been 
beheaded at the other end this time!” 

V.: Did you ever meet Gambetta at Charpen- 
tiers? There seems to be a great difference of opinion 
about him; he is either inordinately praised or violently 
criticized; apparently there is no happy medium. 

R.: He was the simplest and most courteous man I 
have ever met. One day when he had been particularly 
nice to me, I got up courage enough to ask him to use 
his influence in getting me named as curator of some 
provincial museum or other, at two hundred francs a 
month. Spuller was present at the time—he thought 
I was really a bit too ambitious. But Gambetta was 
not so much surprised at my presumption as at the 
oddity of my request. He finally said: “My dear 
Renoir, you talk as if you had been born yesterday. 
Ask for a job as professor of Chinese or inspector of 
cemeteries—something at least that has nothing to do 
with your profession—and I will help you; but if we 

94 


$381 dO-.SUAHLVE, AHL YOd HOLS 








MADAME CHARPENTIER’S SALON 


nominated a painter as curator of a museum, we would 
simply be laughed at.” 

But when Gambetta could do someone a service, he 
did it with the best grace in the world! During one of 
our exhibitions I had gone to La République Frangaise 
to ask them to publish a little article in our behalf. 
I had to deal with Challemel-Lacour, who made short 
work of my request. “We can’t do a thing for you,” 
he said. “You Impressionists are nothing but a pack 
of rebels!” 

On the way downstairs, however, I met Gambetta, 
who asked me what I was doing at the newspaper office. 
I told him my story, and he burst out laughing. 

“Imagine Challemel-Lacour objecting to a rebel!” 

So Gambetta had the article put in for us. He was 
the simplest and most straightforward of the whole 
crowd. 

V.: But his head was turned later on, wasn’t it? 

R.: Perhaps, but don’t forget that whenever he en- 
tered a salon he had to face a mob of people craning 
their necks to get a look at him. Such notoriety 
simply made him ill at ease, so he avoided the crowd 
and took refuge in the smoking-room, which was im- 
mediately invaded by the most fastidious women at the 
gathering. On those evenings, they declared that there 
was nothing they loved so much as the odour of cigars 
and pipes! You can imagine my astonishment, then, 
when one night I found Gambetta all alone in the 
smoking-room at the Charpentiers’. Not a female in 
sight. I then learned that on that very day he had 

95 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


given the Chamber of Deputies the dressing-down which 
proved to be a fatal set-back to his political career. 

At the Charpentiers’ I also met the musician Chabrier 
again, after an interval of several years. He is the man 
who owns my After the Concert (La Sortie du Conserva- 
toire), which I painted in the garden in the Rue Cortot. 
We had been intimate for a long time. There’s a 
musician for you! I remember an evening of music at 
my house in Montmartre, just after Chabrier had re- 
turned from Spain. After dinner he went to the piano 
and worked until midnight on the characteristic themes 
of his Espana. He played with his whole body; his 
hands and his feet worked together with the rhythm as 
he chanted Ollé, Ollé! 

V.: When did you paint Madame Charpentier and 
Her Children? 4 

R.: In 1878. It was because of the personality of 
the sitter that they decided to admit this “‘revolutionary” 
work to the Salon of 1879. I sent the full-length por- 
trait of Mademoiselle Samary to the same Salon. It 
is an absolute miracle that that canvas was ever pre- 
served. The day before the opening, a friend came 
and told me that he had just been to the Salon, and 
that something queer seemed to have happened to my 
Mademoiselle Samary. 

I dashed to the Salon and found the picture almost 
beyond recognition—it looked as if it were melting 
away. It seems that the framer instructed the delivery 
boy to varnish another picture that he was delivering 
at the same time. The boy had a little varnish left 


1 In the Metropolitan Museum, New York. 
96 


MADAME CHARPENTIER’S SALON 


over and decided to give me the benefit of it. I didn’t 
varnish mine because the paint was still wet, but he 
thought I was being economical! The result was I 
had to repaint the whole thing in an afternoon. You 
can imagine my state of mind! 

V.: How much did you get for the portrait of 
Madame Charpentier? 

R.:; I believe it was about a thousand francs. 

V.: A thousand francs! A huge canvas with three 
figures? 

R.: That was an exceptional price at the time. 
Did you ever know a man named Poupin, a former 
employé at Durand-Ruel’s, who bought up a business 
in objets d'art, and occasionally sold pictures on the 
side? J remember having seen one of my canvases, 
The Page, on the sidewalk in front of his shop. It was 
a life-size figure and it was marked in chalk “80 francs.” 

V.: Did you ever paint Mademoiselle Samary in one 
of her roles? 

R.: No, I hardly ever saw her on the stage. I don’t 
like the acting at the Comédie Francaise. One day | 
saw Ellen André in a pantomime at the Folies Bergére 
—a tiny part, but how she played it! The next day 
I astonished Bérard by remarking that the State ought 
to subsidize the Folies Bergére instead of the Comédie! 

V.: Then I don’t need to ask you what you think of 
Hervieu's plays. .. . 

Renoir made a vague gesture. 

Franc-Lamy had entered the studio at this moment. 
“Were you talking about Hervieur” he asked. 

V.: Do you know himp 

97 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


Franc-Lamy: 1 met him at tea at the chateau of 
the Duchess of X. There were a crowd of ladies around 
him raving about the living quality of his characters, 
the sincerity of art, etc. 

“What is your secret, Master? How do you manage 
to know the human heart to its very depths?” 

Hervieu replied: “My secret? I'll tell you. I rely 
on Nature.” We were in the rose-garden of the chateau 
at the time; it was a wonderful sight, Renoir; thousands 
of rose-bushes in bloom. “Roses are my passion,” the 
Duchess said to Hervieu. “Ah, you who love Nature 
soumMuch ace 

Some days afterwards the Duchess with her hundred 
thousand roses received a box by express from the lover 
of Nature. It was a sheaf of hot-house roses, forced in 
a florist’s laboratory, all wrapped up in gold paper and 
mounted on wire stems! 


V.: (to Renoir): I have never heard you mention 
Sarah Bernhardt. 

R.: What I like in an actress—and it’s rare enough, 
Lord knows—is feminine charm.? Jeanne Granier had 
it to the mth degree. You should have seen her in 
Barbe-Bleue! 1 should love to have painted her. 

2 Renoir had seen Sarah Bernhardt in Camille, and as he detested 


the play, he always disliked the actress on account of it. (Author’s 
Note.) 


98 


CHAPTER ELEVEN 
EARLY TRAVELS 


Renoir: After the Salon of 1879, I took a six weeks’ 
trip to Algeria with Lestringuéz. There I painted the 
Banana-Trees, Garden at Essai, Arab Mounted on 
a Camel, and Arabs and Donkeys. ... The Arab 
Mounted gave me the most trouble on account of the 
crowds that collected about me. But for curiosity the 
Arab is nothing compared to Frenchmen in general and 
the Parisian in particular. 

That reminds me of the time I was painting in a 
field near Beaulieu. I was surrounded by a whole 
family which had just got off the train from Paris. | 
never realized before how ignorant city people are 
about the country! While the mother and children were 
hanging on my neck giving me advice, the father, who 
had walked off a little way to tend to Nature’s needs, 
began shouting back at them excitedly: 

“Hey, come over here; I’ve just found a field of wild 
artichokes!” Wald artichokes! 

The layman seems to have an insatiable curiosity 
about an artist at work. Animals too, for that matter. 
One day when I was working in the forest of Fon- 
tainebleau, I heard a whistling noise behind me. I 
turned and saw a couple of deer craning their necks to 


watch me paint. 
99 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 

Upon returning from Algeria, I took a studio in the 
Rue de Norvins (1880). From there I moved to the 
Rue Houdon. The following summer found me in 
Guernsey, where | did several beach pictures. It is a 
charming place, with such patriarchal customs! .. . at 
least, they were patriarchal then. The English left 
their Anglo-Saxon prudery behind them on their 
vacations. Bathing suits were unheard of, and the 
little English misses, so proper at home, thought nothing 
‘of bathing side by side with a naked boy. I did my 
Nude Bathers that summer. 

My wife and I occupied the first floor, and our friend 
Lauth the third, of a house in which the second and 
fourth had been rented by a Protestant minister from 
London. One day when I was passing the second-floor 
rooms, what should I see through the wide-open doors 
but the whole family of the pastor, including Mary, the 
maid, standing in Indian file, naked as the day they 
were born! ‘They had just come in from swimming, and 
in order to get warm everyone was spanking the bottom 
of the person in front and singing: 


“He runs, he runs, the ferret .. .” 


They used to go naked up and down the stairways, 
from the second to the fourth floor. Lauth, who was 
near-sighted as a mole, one day saw a bare bottom 
directly in front of him on the staircase. He gave it a 
resounding thwack, and shouted in high good humour: 
“Hey there, Mary!” 

100 


EARLY TRAVELS 
It was the pastor himself! How we laughed! 


Not long after returning to Paris, I decided to visit 
Italy. I went first to Venice, where I painted several 
Nudes, a sketch of the Grand Canal, a Gondola, the 
Doges Palace, the Piazza San Marco. 

My greatest surprise at Venice was the discovery of 
Carpaccio, with his fresh and gay colours. He was one 
of the first who dared to paint people actually walking 
in a street. I remember especially a dragon in one of 
his pictures which looks as if it were a merry-go-round 
beast on a leash—one of those dragons you expect any 
moment to offer you his paw. And his Saint George is 
baptizing the Gentiles in the midst of a gay crowd 
playing huge drums and trombones! Carpaccio must 
have got his models at the fairs! One of his land- 
scapes also interested me immensely, for it was neither 
more nor less than a view of Provence. 

I really enjoyed Venice. How superb the Doges’ 
Palace is! That white and rose marble may have been 
rather cold when it was first built, but it was enchanting 
to me, made golden as it was by several centuries of 
sunlight! . 

And then Saint Mark’s. It was a welcome change 
from those cold Italian churches of the Renaissance, 
especially that cathedral at Milan which the Italians 
are so proud of, with its roof made of marble lace. 
Lord, what stupidity!’ As soon as you have entered 
Saint Mark’s, you feel that you are in a real temple; 
there is a soft and mysterious air about it, and the 

101 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


mosaics are magnificent—especially the Byzantine 
Christ with the hollow eyes. It is impossible to im- 
agine how beautiful it is if you haven’t been there and 
seen its heavy pillars and twisted columns. 

The cold finally drove me from Venice, and I went on 
to Florence. I don’t know when I’ve been so annoyed 
by a place. It is such a mournful city, with its black 
and white buildings. I felt as if I were walking about 
among chequer-boards! So I did nothing at Florence, 
or at Rome either, for that matter, but visit museums. 
I liked immensely Raphael’s Heliodorus Driven from 
the Temple in the Vatican. It is full of innocent little 
flames that can hardly be said to set you on fire, but 
are satisfying none the less. In the midst of the endless 
variety of masterpieces both at Florence and Rome, 
I must confess that my greatest joy was Raphael. 
Especially at Florence. . . . I can’t begin to tell you 
how I felt when I first saw the Virgin of the Chair! 
I expected to have a good laugh; but I found the freest, 
the most solid, the most marvelously simple and living 
kind of painting that it is possible to imagine. The 
arms and legs were of real flesh! And what a touching 
expression of maternal tenderness! When I came back 
to Paris, | spoke to Huysmans about the Virgin of the 
Chair. He exclaimed: 

“Well, well! Another victim of Raphael’s bromure!” 

There was a painter, Gervex I think it was, who 
would say, whenever I spoke of my admiration for 
Raphael: 

“What! Are you going in for pompier art?” 

The frescoes of the Farnesina delighted me, too. 

102 


EARLY TRAVELS 


You know how fresco-painting has always interested me. 
I had read somewhere that these were the first experi- 
ments in oil frescoes. No matter how they were painted, 
they’re the most exquisite pictures in the world. 

V.: Did Michael Angelo come up to your expecta- 
tions? 

R.: I prefer Donatello. His people are more varied 
than Michael Angelo’s. In spite of his genius, 
Angelo’s figures are all alike. His muscles are 
always too much the same; he studied anatomy too 
much, and, for fear he would forget the least little 
muscle, he put in so many that the poor things would 
never have been able to get about. 

From Rome I went on to Naples. It was rest- 
ful to find so much of the art of Pompeii and the 
Egyptians. [I had begun to tire a little of Italian 
painting—for ever the same draperies and the same 
Virgins. The priestesses in their silver-grey tunics 
looked just like the nymphs of Corot. What I like so 
much about Corot is that he gives you everything in a 
mere sketch of a tree. And it was Corot himself that 
I found again, body and soul, in the Naples Museum, in 
the simplicity of workmanship that was characteristic 
of Pompeii and the Egyptians. 

One picture in Naples which impressed me very much 
was the portrait of Pope Julius III by Titian. You 
should see the head of the Pope—with his white beard 
and his terrible mouth! 


During my stay in Naples, I painted a large canvas, a 
Woman with a Child on Her Knees; also some views of 
103 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


the city, among them a Quai with Vesuvius in the 
Distance; and a Woman’s Torso, which I sold to Vever; 
there is also a replica of it which I did at ee for 
Gallimard. 

V.: What about the portrait of Wagner? 

R.: When I was at Naples, I received several letters 
from Wagner enthusiasts, among them Lascoux, the 
juge d’instruction, who was one of my best friends. He 
urged me to make every effort to bring back at least a 
sketch of Wagner. I decided to go to Palermo, where 
the composer was staying at the time. The very first 
day I went to his hotel, I ran right into a young painter 
named Jonkofsky, one of the most amiable souls in the 
world, who followed Wagner wherever he went, trying 
to do his portrait. In the meantime, he was painting 
the small models for Wagner’s stage sets. Jonkofsky 
informed me that, for the time being, Wagner was busy 
completing the orchestration of his Parsifal, and was 
seeing nobody. But he agreed to let me know when the 
work was finished. When I got word that he was ready 
to present me to Wagner, I found that I had lost the 
letters of introduction sent to me by friends in Paris. 
But I took the chance and presented myself with empty 
hands—except for my paint box. 

“IT have only half an hour to give you,’ were his 
first words. He thought he would get rid of me that 
way; but I took him at his word. While I was working, 
I did my best to keep him interested, talking of Paris. 
He made no attempt to conceal that he hoped for much 
from the French, and when I told him that the 

104 





SLEEPING GIRL WITH A CAT (1880) 


Durand-Ruel Collection, Paris 


~ 





’ EARLY TRAVELS 


aristocracy of French intellects was with him, he was 
very flattered. 

“T have always wanted to please the French,’ he said, 
“but I always thought they liked nothing but German 
Jew music.” (A reference to Meyerbeer. ) 

After posing twenty-five minutes, Wagner got up 
abruptly. 

“Enough! I’m tired!” he exclaimed. 

But I had had time enough to finish my study. I 
later sold it to Robert de Bonniéres, and made a replica 
of it, which figured in the Chéramy sale. The 
Palermo portrait was done in 1881, the year before 
Wagner's death. 

V.: Was that the only time you ever met Wagner? 

R.: Yes. Of course | hardly knew Wagner at all 
personally, but I have been able to count as very good 
friends some of the first pilgrims to Beyreuth, such 
as Lascoux, Chabrier, and Maitre, whom I have spoken 
to you about. 

V.: And Saint-Saéns?P 

R.: Inever knew him. They say that at one time 
there was no more ardent Wagnerian than he. 

V.: So I have heard. Maitre told Wyzewa an 
amusing story about Saint-Saéns. He and Maitre were 
seated in a café in Beyreuth in 1876. In the course of 
the conversation, Maitre was indiscreet enough to in- 
sinuate that the Tetralogy contained, perhaps, some 
rather long passages. . . . On hearing this harmless 
criticism, Saint-Saéns smashed his glass on the table 
and left the room in a rage. 

105 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


R.: At all events, Saint-Saéns seems to be vigor- 
ously condemning his former idol at the present mo- 
ment. Someone read me an article about it in a Nice 
paper. 

V.: One day I met the director of some musical 
review at Wyzewa’s house, Monsieur Ecorcheville | 
think it was, who had heard the story of the disagree- 
ment that arose between Wagner and Saint-Saéns, from 
a friend of the latter. 

This time the scene was Wagner’s home in Beyreuth, 
the doors of which had been opened to him by his 
fanaticism for the German master. One evening Frau 
Wagner asked the French disciple to play something by 
her husband on the piano in the drawing-room. Instead, 
Saint-Saéns launched into his own Funeral March 
written in honour of Henri Regnault. Whereupon 
Wagner, with friendly malice—or perhaps it was just 
ingenuousness—cried out: “Ah! a Parisian waltz!’ 
And he seized one of the ladies by the waist and began 
to whirl around the room! 


“But how about yourself, Monsieur Renoir? Are 
you a Wagner enthusiast toor’’ I asked. 

R.: Iused to like Wagner very much. I was quite 
carried away by the kind of passionate fluidity that 
there seemed to be in his music; but a friend took me 
once to Beyreuth, and I need hardly tell you that I 
was frightfully bored. The screams of the Walkyries 
are all right for a short time, but when they last six 
hours on end, you go mad. _ I'll never forget the scandal 
that I created when, in an excess of boredom, | lighted 

106 


EARLY TRAVELS 
a match in the theatre while the performance was still 
going on. 

I decidedly prefer Italian music; it is less pedantic 
than the German. Even Beethoven has sometimes a 
professorial side that makes my flesh creep. But there 
is nothing that can touch a little air by Couperin or 
Grétry—any of the old French music, in fact. There's 
fine “drawing” for you! 

I couldn’t stand it very long at Beyreuth. I’d had 
my fill after three days, and I felt the need of a change 
to compensate for it. So one fine morning | took the 
train for Dresden. I had been wanting for quite a while 
to see the big Vermeer called The Courtesan. In spite 
of the title, the lady looks like the most respectable of 
creatures. She is surrounded by a group of people. 
One young man has his hand on her breast, so that you 
will be sure to know that she is a courtesan. The hand, 
full of colour and youth, in sharp contrast to the citron- 
yellow corsage, is very beautiful. 

There is another Vermeer at Vienna, which has an 
enormous reputation, The Painter in His Studio. 1 
would love to have seen that! . . . All my life I have 
dreamed of going there . . . like Athens. . . . But to 
return to Dresden: There is also a Watteau with a 
marvellous landscape in the museum. . . . As to archi- 
tecture, Dresden is rather weak, aside from the Catholic 
church and the Museum, two buildings of a charming 
kind of rococo. 

V.: I suppose you are not a great devotee of the 
Opera, if you have so little patience with long pieces of 
music. 

107 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 

R.: You would hardly call me an habitué. I have 
only put my foot in the place two or three times in my 
life, and then I was always dragged there by friends. 
Just recently Mrs. Edwards took me there to see the 
Russian Ballet. It’s not bad. The Opera ought to get 
some new women, though. You see the same ones they 
had there thirty years ago. 


Coming back from Italy, I went to the Midi. I 
looked up Cézanne and proposed that we should go to 
Estaque together to paint. 

“Oh, don’t go there!” cried Cézanne, who had just 
come back. “Estaque is done for! They’ve put up 
parapets. I can’t bear it!’ 

I went just the same, a little saddened by the thought 
of how they must have spoiled it; but I was encouraged 
when I found the same old Estaque, and if Cézanne had 
not told me, I would never have noticed any change. 
His parapets were just a few stones one on top of 
another. 

It was on this trip that I brought back a magnificent 
water-colour of Bathers by Cézanne, the one you see 
there on the wall. The day | found it, I was with my 
friend Lauth. He had been suddenly taken with a 
violent diarrhea. i 

“Do you see any good leaves around? No, I don’t 
want pine-needles.” 

“No, but here’s some paper,” I replied, picking up a 
stray piece at my feet. It was one of the finest of 
Cézanne’s water-colours; he had thrown it away among 
the rocks after having slaved over it for twenty sittings. 

108 


EARLY TRAVELS 


Nothing is so treacherous as the climate of the 
Midi. I caught the inevitable cold in my chest 
at Estaque, which decided me to make a second trip to 
Algeria. There I made a life-size portrait of a young 
girl named Mademoiselle Fleury, dressed in Algerian 
costume, in an Arab house, holding a bird. I also 
painted the canvas called Algerian Women, a little Arab 
Porter—Biskra, some studies of Mosques, and a 
Fantasy. When I delivered this last canvas to Durand- 
Ruel, it looked like a pile of palette scrapings. But 
Durand-Ruel had confidence in it, and several years 
afterwards, the colour having worked sufficiently, the 
picture came out on the canvas in just the way I had 
conceived it. | 

There you have my principal travels while my 
legs were still good, and when travelling meant lodging 
in real native taverns, and spending whole days tramp- 
ing in the country... . 

Later I visited other countries, among them Spain, 
Holland, and Germany. I recently went to Munich 
again, but this time I had to be carried to the mu- 
seums. 

Ah! if | had only met Doctor Gautiez 1 before I was 
completely done up! Have you heard about that 
woman who couldn’t take a step without twisting her 

1 Doctor Henri Gautiez. Bernheim-Jeune had brought him one 
day to the studio. Renoir had already been confined to his wheel- 
chair for several years. Doctor Gautiez succeeded in getting him 
to take several steps unaided He said that if Renoir would exercise 
every day, and give his best efforts to it... 


“But my painting!” cried the artist. 
And he sat down, never to leave his wheel-chair again. 


109 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


ankle? Hecured her simply by showing her how to put 
her foot down on the ground properly. 1 told a famous 
physician about it once, but he interrupted me with: 
“Yes, but Gautiez cures without operating. That's 
only empiricism!” 


110 


CHAPTER TWELVE 
THE IMPRESSIONIST THEORIES 


I HAD been wanting for a long time to know what Renoir 
thought of the theories of Impressionism; but I was 
positive that if I were to ask him bluntly, he would 
reply at once: “Oh, don’t bother me!’ Therefore I 
set about reading what the critics of modern art had 
written on the subject, and, taking note of the state- 
ments which had struck me as. the most significant, I 
said one day: 

“The modern painters are very fortunate to have 
colours that the ancient never even dreamed of!” 

Renoir: Fortunate ancients, you mean; they had 
only the ochres and browns. What a pretty spectacle 
progress is anyway! 

Vollard: At least you cannot deny that the Im- 
pressionists have made real progress by discarding “flat 
tones, which destroy transparency.” 

R.: Who told you that flat tones destroy trans- 
parency? That sounds like Pere Tanguy.t He thought 
that you had to paint “thick” to be modern. 

At first I was tempted to reply that I had got it 

1 For further information about Pére Tanguy, see Paul Cézanne, 
His Life and Art, by Ambroise Vollard, translated by Harold L, 


Yan Doren. (Nicholas L, Brown, New York, 1923.) 
II] 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


from a book of advanced modern criticism;? but I 
thought it would be more prudent not to mention it. 
However, I continued: ‘Then the only innovation of 
Impressionism, so far as technique is concerned, is the 
elimination of black, the non-colour?” ® 

R. (startled): Black anon-colour? Where on earth 
did you get that? Why, black is the queen of colours! 
Wait. Look in that Lives of the Painters. Find 
Tintoretto. Here, give me the book! 

(He read.) “When Tintoretto was asked what his 
favourite colour was, he replied: “The most beautiful 
of all colours is black.’ ” 

V.: How is that, when you have substituted Prus- 
sian blue for black? 4 

R.: Who told you sop I have always had a horror 
of Prussian blue. Once | tried to use a mixture of red 
and blue instead of black, but then I used cobalt-blue or 
ultramarine, only to come back in the end to ivory- 
black. 

(I was decidedly not having any luck with my quo- 
tations. | began to think that my authorities, not be- 
ing painters, might be ignorant of questions of tech- 
nique, but I supposed that their professional standing 
as critics would at least guarantee their competence on 
other points: the influence of one artist upon another, 
for example. So I led the conversation by degrees to 


2Georges Lecomte, Impressionist Art, Chamerot and Renouard, 
Paris, 1892, page 22. 
3 [bid., page 16. 
4Camille Mauclair, Impressionism (Librairie de lArt Ancien et 
Moderne), Paris, 1904, page 117. 
112 


IMPRESSIONIST THEORIES 


Monet, and I asked Renoir if Watteau, in his Embarka- 
tion for Cythera, had not anticipated Monet’s manner 
even as early as the eighteenth century with his “divi- 
sion of tonalities by touches of juxtaposed colour, com- 
bining at a distance in the eye of the spectator to give 
the effect of the local colour of the objects painted.” °) 

R.: No more of that, I beg of you! I remember 
having heard something like that before. Have you 
never even looked at the Embarkation for Cythera? 
You can take a magnifying-glass to it and you will 
find nothing but mixed tones. 

V.: Then Turner, in his “luminous” period, was the 
only one before Monet who used prismatic colours. 

R.: Turner? Do you call that luminous?—just like 
bon-bon colours. ... It would be exactly the same 
thing if he painted with his morning chocolate! 

V.: But Claude Monet and Pissarro were Turner’s 
disciples, were they not? 

R.: Pissarro tried a little of everything, even petit 
point, but he gave it up like the others. As for Monet, 
someone told me that on returning from one of his 
trips to London, he said: “Turner makes me sick!” 
The only man who influenced Monet was Jongkind. 
He was Monet’s point of departure. 

I can give you a personal example of influences in 
painting. At the beginning, I used to put paint on 
thick, thinking I would get more “‘value” that way. 
One day, at the Louvre, I noticed that Rubens had ob- 
tained more by a simple rubbing than | did with all 

5 Ibid., page 16. See also Georges Lecomte, Impressionist Art, 


page 23. 
113 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


my heavy layers. Another time, I discovered that 
Rubens produced a silver with black. I learned my 
lesson, of course; but does that necessarily mean that | 
was influenced by Rubens? 

(I began to ask myself if all the things which had im- 
pressed me so much were not simply “literature.” I 
made one last try:) 

At any rate, the Impressionists excel in “painting by 
chance sensations and by the powerful clairvoyance of 
instinct. j.4 9 

R. (interrupting): “Chance sensations’! “Power 
of the instincts”! Like the animals, eh? That sounds 
like the fools who congratulate us on giving our models 
“expressive poses.” 7 Those good people do not realize 
that Cézanne called his compositions souvenirs of 
the museums; for my part, I have always tried to 
paint human beings just as I would beautiful fruit. 
Look at the greatest of modern painters, Corot, and see 
if his women are “thinkers.” But if you try to tell 
those people that the most important thing for a painter 
is to know good colours, just as the mason ought to 
know the best mortar 8 And the first Impressionists 
worked away without ever even thinking of a sale! It 
is the only thing our imitators have forgotten to copy. 

(I saw a little book on the table with the pages still 
uncut, called The Laws of Impressionism, a Selection 
from the Masters of Criticism.) 

7See Appendix I, A. 
6 Georges Lecomte, Impressionist Art, page 22. 
8 Monsieur Mauclair does not approve of the tendency of the 


Impressionists “to insist on a painter's being, above all, a good 
craftsman.” 





114 


IMPRESSIONIST THEORIES 

R.: Always this mania for imposing a lot of rigid 
formulz and processes on the painter! To conform 
with the rules, we would all have to have the same 
palette—socialism in art, eh? Painting in twenty-five 
lessons! | 

(I had started to turn the pages of The Laws of Im- 
pressionism, and I read aloud: ‘Manet died before he 
was able to take advantage of the luminosity derived 
from the division of tones.” ®) 

R.: He was lucky to have died in time. 

V. (continuing to read): “The majority [of Impres- 
sionists], especially gifted artists, would certainly have 
left glorious works, even if they had kept to traditional 
methods.” 4° 

R. (silencing me with a motion of his hand): But 
it was just when I was able to get rid of the Impression- 
ist theories, and came back to the teaching of the mu- 
seums. ... (He gave a slight shrug.) 

V.: So even the best of the Impressionist “theories” 
is simply literature “putting the hooks into painting,” 
as Cézanne would have said. But you cannot deny 
that certain painters profited by Chevreul’s work on 
the spectrum. Now when the Neo-Impressionists ap- 
plied their scientific discoveries .. . 

R.: Their what? 

V.: You know what I mean, pure tones juxta- 
ee 4) 

R.: Ah, yes, petit point. Octave Mirbeau took me 
one day to see an exhibition of that. But the worst of 

® Georges Lecomte, Impressionist Art, page 27. 


10 [bid., page 24. 
115 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


it was that, on entering, you were informed that to be 
able to tell what the pictures represented, you must 
stand two and a half yards away from them. You 
know how I love to walk close to a picture, and even 
take it in my hands! You remember the large picture 
by Seurat, Models in a Studio, that we saw together— 
a canvas painted in petit point, the last word in science! 
Lord! that picture was ugly in tone! Do you remember 
the chap beside me who said: ‘What difference does 
it make how the picture turned out, so long as the artist 
enjoyed doing it?” 

Can you imagine Veronese’s Last Supper painted in 
petit point? 

But when Seurat paints without tricks! ... you 
know those little canvases of his, unpretentious, no 
“pure tones’; how beautifully they are preserved. 

The truth is that in painting, as in the other arts, 
there’s not a single process, no matter how insignificant, 
which can reasonably be made into a formula. For in- 
stance, I tried long ago to measure out, once and for 
all, the amount of oil which I put in my colour. I 
simply could not do it. I have to judge the amount 
necessary with each dip of the brush. The “scientific” 
artists thought they had discovered a truth once they 
had learned that the juxtaposition of yellow and blue 
gives violet shadows. But even when you know that, 
you still don’t know anything. There is something in 
painting which cannot be explained, and that some- 
thing is the essential. You come to Nature with your 
theories, and she knocks them all flat. 

116 





THE UMBRELLAS (1883) 
National Gallery, London 


IMPRESSIONIST THEORIES 


The door bell rang. 

“Is Monsieur Renoir at home?” 

I got up to go. 

R.: You can stay; I recognize the voice. It is Z. 
You know, he is the only one at the Beaux Arts who 
likes what we are doing, except, of course, Roger Marx. 

(I congratulated Monsieur Z. on the courage with 
which he was battling for modern art, risking, at every 
turn, his excellent position of chief Under-Inspector at 
the Ministry.) 

Z.: Behold a man who has not wasted his day! By 
going over the head of my minister, I have just suc- 
ceeded in obtaining from the Ministry of Commerce the 
formal promise of a rosette for Ernest Laurent. His 
“open air indoors” is doing more than anything else to 
popularize Impressionist art. 7 

(When he had left the studio, I echoed: “Open air 
indoors” !) 

R.: The popularization of art, indeed! That's 
enough to make you give it all up! Fortunately there 
is no stupidity in the world that can make a painter stop 
painting. 


117, 


CHAPTER THIRTEEN 
RENOIR’S DRY MANNER 


RENOIR: I was going to tell you last time, when Z. 
called, about a sort of break that came in my work 
about 1883. I had wrung Impressionism dry, and I 
finally came to the conclusion that I knew neither how to 
paint nor draw. Ina word, Impressionism was a blind 
alley, as far as I was concerned. 

Vollard: But what about all the effects of light that 
you rendered so well?’ 

R.: I finally realized that it was too complicated 
an affair, a kind of painting that made you constantly 
compromise with yourself. Out of doors there is a 
greater variety of light than in the studio, where, to all 
intents and purposes, it is constant; but, for just that 
reason, light plays too great a part outdoors; you have 
no time to work out the composition; you can’t see 
what you are doing. I remember a white wall which 
reflected on my canvas one day while I was painting; I 
keyed down the colour to no purpose—everything I put 
on was too light; but when I took it back to the studio, 
the picture looked black. 

Another time I was painting in Brittany, in a grove 
of chestnut-trees. It was autumn. Everything | put 
on the canvas, even the blacks and the blues, was mag- 

118 


RENOIR’S DRY MANNER 


nificent. But it was the golden luminosity of the trees 
that was making the picture; once in the studio, with 
a normal light, it was a frightful mess. 

If the painter works directly from Nature, he ulti- 
mately looks for nothing but momentary effects; he does 
not try to compose, and soon he gets monotonous. 
I once asked a friend, who was exhibiting a series of 
Village Streets, why they were all deserted. 

“Because,” he replied, “the streets were empty while 
I was at work.” 

V.: Corot painted all his life in the open, didn’t he? 

R.: His studies, yes, but his compositions were done 
in the studio. He corrected Nature. Everybody used 
to say that he was wrong to work his sketches over in- 
doors. I had the good fortune to meet Corot once and 
I told him of the difficulty I had in working out of 
doors. He replied: “That’s because you can never be 
sure of what you’re doing. You must always paint 
over again in the studio.” But that did not prevent 
Corot from interpreting Nature with a realism that no 
Impressionist painter has ever been able to equal! How 
I have slaved to paint the colours of the stones of 
Chartres cathedral and the red bricks of the houses at 
La Rochelle as he did! 

V.:  Weren’t the Old Masters working for these 
same effects of light? Duranty, I think, says that the 
Venetians foreshadowed them. 

R.: “Foreshadowed” is good! Just look at the 
Titians in the Prado. You don’t even have to go back 
as far as Titian take Ribera, a painter who has the 
reputation of being the last word in black. Do you re- 

119 





RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


member the rose colour of the child and the yellow of 
the straw in his Infant Jesus in the Louvre? Have you 
ever seen anything more luminous than that? 

V.: Allow me one last question. I read somewhere 
that “when we study the pictures in the museums— 
even those which exhibit the utmost science in the dis- 
position of the planes, the use of perspective, the forms 
of clouds, the drawing of objects, the play of light, we 
observe one convention, or, rather, a lack of knowledge. 
In Ruysdael, and especially in Hobbema, the stippled, 
metallic foliage is the colour of ink. It is as if the 
sun had been blotted out.” 

R.: Yes, but long before Ruysdael there were paint- 
ers who filled their pictures with sunlight. Your au- 
thor chooses his examples badly. In Italy, which is a 
warm country, Nature is more prodigal than in Holland. 
In the Marriage at Cana and the nudes of Titian, there 
is finer light than in any modern canvas. 

V.: What about their landscapes? 

R.: Look at the Villa d’Este of Velasquez, or the 
Concert Champétre of Giorgione, to mention only two. 
Even Rembrandt would it ever occur to you to 
wonder whether his pictures were painted out of doors 
or in the studio? 

I’m sick and tired of the so-called “discoveries” of 
Impressionism. It isn’t likely that the Old Masters 
were ignorant of them; and, if they did not use them, 
it was because all great artists have despised mere ef- 
fects. By making Nature simpler, they made it 
more impressive. For instance, if the magnificence of 
a sunset were permanent, it would wear you out, 

120 





RENOIR’S DRY MANNER 


whereas the same scene, without that special effect of 
light, is not at all fatiguing. With the ancient sculp- 
tors, action is reduced to a minimum. Yet you in- 
stinctively feel that their statues could move if they 
wanted to. When you look at Mercié’s David, you al- 
most want to help him put his sabre in its sheath! 


I was looking at a nude on the easel, which had just 
been begun. 

“From the way you talk, Monsieur Renoir, one would 
think that ivory black is the only colour that counts, 
but how do you expect me to believe that you painted 
flesh like that with ‘mud’ r” 

R.: | don’t mean to compare myself with Delacroix, 
but do you remember that phrase of his, ‘“Give me some 
mud, and I will paint you a woman’s flesh” r 

V.: But by that he meant it to be understood that 
the complementaries should be added, did he notr At 
least so the critics say. 

R.: Please don’t ascribe things to Delacroix that he 
never even thought of! If he spoke of complemen- 
taries, it was probably when he was making experiments 
for a ceiling which had to be looked at from a distance. 
In that case, perhaps, you might reasonably speak of 
colours mixing in the eye of the beholder. The only 
thing I remember from the Journal of Delacroix, is that 
he is forever talking about red-brown. At the very 
mention of passing for an innovator, Delacroix would 
have . . . why, when he was painting the ceiling of the 
Chamber of Deputies, an employé of the library tried 
to compliment him by saying: 

121 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


“Master, you are the Victor Hugo of painting.” 

And Delacroix returned dryly: 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, my dear, 
friend! I ama classicist, pure and simple.” 

V.: Did you know that his distrust of innovations 
in art also extended to music? Guillemet asked Corot 
one day what he thought of Delacroix. Corot replied: 

“A great artist! He's the greatest of them all! 
But there is one thing we have never been able to agree 
upon, and that is music! He doesn’t like Berlioz— 
revolutionary music he calls it—and I feel very sorry 
for him.” 

R.: J have told you how I discovered, about 1883, 
that the only thing worth while for a painter is to study 
the museums? I made this discovery on reading a 
little book that Franc-Lamy picked up along the quays; 
it was a treatise on painting by Cennino-Cennini, and 
gave some precious information on the methods of the 
fifteenth-century painters. 

The public is always convinced you are a fool if you 
abandon one style to which it is accustomed and adopt 
another; even my best friends complained of these new 
leaden colours of mine “after such pretty tones!” 

I had undertaken a large picture of Bathers and 
slaved away at it for three years. (The portrait of 
Mademoiselle Manet with a cat in her arms is also of 
this period.) The best that people could find to say 
about it was that it was a muddle of colour! 

On the other hand, I must admit that some of my 
paintings of this period are not very soundly painted,» 
because, after having studied fresco, I had fancied | 

122 


RENOIR’S DRY MANNER 


could eliminate the oil from the colour. The surface 
then became too dry, and the successive layers of paint 
did not adhere well. I did not know at that time 
the elementary truth that oil-painting must be done 
with oil. Of course none of those people who estab- 
lished the rules of the “new” painting ever thought of 
giving us this precious hint! Another reason that in- 
duced me to dry the oil out of my colour was my search 
for a means of preventing the paint from blackening; 
but I later discovered that oil is the very thing which 
keeps colour from becoming black; only, one must know 
how to handle the oil. 

At this time I also did some paintings on cement, but 
I was never able to learn from the ancients the secret 
of their inimitable frescoes. I remember also certain 
canvases in which I had drawn all the smallest 
details with a pen before painting. I was trying to be 
sO precise, on account of my distate for Impressionism, 
that these pictures were extraordinarily dry. 

After three years of experimentation, the Bathers, 
which I considered as my master work, was finished. 
I sent it to an exhibition at the Georges Petit Galleries 
(1886). I got roundly trounced for it, I can tell you. 
This time, everybody, Huysmans in the lead, agreed 
that I was a lost'soul; some even said I was lazy. And 
God knows how | had laboured over it! 

Apropos of the Exhibition at Georges Petit’s, I might 
mention an article by Wyzewa, who was then the book- 
reviewer on the Independent Review. He wrote 
an article about my exhibition which was very comfort- 
ing. I met Wyzewa shortly after, and through his good 

123 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


offices Robert de Bonniéres later gave me a coinmission 
for a portrait of his wife. I can’t remember ever hav- 
ing painted a picture which gave me more trouble! 
You know how I hate to paint skin that does not take 
the light! What was worse, it was the fashion then 
for women to be pale. And Madame de Bonnieres, of 
course, was as pale as wax. I used to say to myself: 
“If I could only get her to swallow a good beefsteak, 
just once!’ No such luck! I worked at her home 
every morning until lunch-time, so I had a chance to 
see what they brought her to eat; a miserable little 
morsel in the centre of the plate. . . . Can you imagine 
that giving her any colour? And such hands! She 
put them in cold water before each sitting, in order to 
increase their whiteness. If it hadn’t been for Wyzewa, 
who spent most of the time cheering me on, I’d have 
thrown it all out of the window, brushes, colour-box, 
canvas—the whole infernal business! Fancy my get- 
ting one of the most charming women in the world to 
paint and—well, she simply refuses to have colour in her 
cheeks! 

But when I say that I have never done a portrait 
which annoyed me more, I am forgetting Madame 
Chartier, a beautiful young woman whose husband kept 
a little inn near Paris. 

V.: I suppose her hands were used to house-work, 
anyway. 

R.: Yes, but there were other things that were not 
so pleasant. She was not what you expect an innkeep- 
er’s wife to be, the placid and docile kind of woman I 
like to paint. On the contrary, she was fidgety and im- 

124 


RENOIR’S DRY MANNER 
patient. One day, more exasperated than usual, | 
shouted at her: “For God’s sake, what’s going on be- 
hind that face of yours!” 
“Oh, Ja la, Monsieur, you’re a nice one! I was just 
thinking that while I’ve been sitting here doing nothing, 
the stew has probably burned to a crisp!” 


125 


CHAPTER FOURTEEN 
THE TRIP TO SPAIN 


Renoir: After having finished the portrait of Madame 
de Bonnieres, | went to Spain with Gallimard. I had 
wanted to see the Prado in Madrid for a long time. 
But what a country Spain is! I didn’t see a single 
pretty woman the whole month I was there. And 
there’s a total lack of any vegetation. But at least 
Spain hasn't become a republic like France, and doesn't 
have to put up with that delightful régime which has 
abolished the right’ of inheritance by the eldest son, 
and obliges a man to divide the smallest bit of land 
among all his surviving children. Before long we won't 
have a single tree left in the fields, or a fish in the rivers, 
or a bird in the air. 

Vollard: Did you see any of the famous Spanish 
dances? 3 

R.: J saw some in Seville. But in general they 
were no longer considered fashionable, so I had to go 
out into the toughest parts of the suburbs to find out 
what they were really like. The women are enormous! 
And these cigarette girls that writers talk so much about 
are perfect frights. If it hadn’t been for the Prado, I 
should have turned round and come right home the 
same day. But I couldn’t miss Velasquez. 

126 


TRIP TO SPAIN 


V.: And the Grecos? 

R.: It’s commonplace enough to say that El Greco 
is a very great painter, in spite of the studio lighting in 
his pictures, and his hands, which all look alike, and 
his “chic-ed” draperies. His faults only serve to 
strengthen my natural preference for Velasquez. What 
I love so much is that aristocratic quality that you find 
over and over again in Velasquez, in the smallest de- 
tail, the simplest ribbon. The whole art of painting 
is in the little pink bow of the Infanta Margherita in 
the Louvre! How lovely the eyes are and the skin in 
the hollow of the eyes! There is not the slightest 
shadow of sentimentality, either. 

I know that the critics find fault with Velasquez 
for his too great facility. But what better proof that 
Velasquez knew his craft to perfection?’ Only the 
painter who knows his business thoroughly, can create 
the impression that a picture was done at one stroke. 
His work looks so easy, but think of the experimenta- 
tion it must have taken! His blacks are magnificent. 
The older I grow, the more I love black! You break 
your neck trying to find the right colour; then you 
put in a little touch of ivory-black—and there you 
are! 

V.: Did you know that Emile Bernard was expelled 
from Cormon’s class! at the Beaux Arts for not using 
black? Cormon saidto him: ‘What, you haven’t any 
ivory-black on your palette? If you think you are go- 
ing to make black with blue and red, I can’t have you 

1Cormon, Fernand. French painter born in 1845. He is re- 
markable for his colour. (Larousse Dictionary.) 


127 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


in my class. You might stir up trouble with such 
ideas.” 

But recently a young painter who had taken his first 
lessons from Emile Bernard, who, by that time, had 
changed his mind about ivory-black, went to study un- 
der Cormon. One day Cormon stopped in front of the 
new-comer’s easel. 

“What’s that dirty stuff you have on your palette? 
Whom have you studied with, anyway? Don’t you 
know that black is a non-colour and that nowadays 
everyone agrees that it must be made with red and 
bluer” 

But tell me more about the Prado, Monsieur Renoir. 
Which Velasquez did you like the best? 

R.: Lord, it would be hard to choose among so 
many marvels! The workmanship in those pictures 1s 
superb! He gives you thick and heavy embroideries 
with a simple rubbing of black and white. I know 
nothing more beautiful than The Spinners! The back- 
ground of that picture is sheer gold and diamonds. 

Wasn't it Charles Blanc who said that Velasquez was 
too matter-of-fact? Why do people always look for 
ideas in painting? When I look at a masterpiece, I am 
satisfied simply to enjoy it. It takes a professor to find 
defects in the masters. The very defects may be 
necessary. Raphael’s Saint Michael in the Louvre 
has a thigh half a mile long! But it might not be so 
fine otherwise. Take Michael Angelo himself, the su- 
preme anatomist. The other day, I was afraid that the 
breasts of my Venus were too far apart. Just then I 
happened upon a photograph of the Dawn from the 

128 





BATHER (1891) 





7 


TRIP TO SPAIN 


tomb of Julian de’ Medici. Then I saw that Michael 
Angelo had not hesitated to put the breasts even farther 
apart than I had. And look at the Marriage at Cana. 
If that picture were in proper perspective, with the fig- 
ures in the background proportionately small, 1t would 
look empty. It is full because the figures in the back 
are nearly as large as those in the foreground. What 
is more, the floor doesn’t recede according to the rules. 
Perhaps that’s why it’s so fine. 

There is another thing in Velasquez which delights 
me: his painting radiates with the joy the artist had in 
doing it. 

It is not enough for a painter to be a clever crafts- 
man; he must love to “caress” his canvas too. That’s 
what was lacking in Van Gogh. ‘What a wonderful 
painter!” people say. But his canvases do not show the 
light, tender touch of the brush. And there’s his rather 
exotic side too... . But try to tell your critics that 
art is not only a question of craftsmanship, but also 
that there must be a certain something that the pro- 
fessors can’t give you—finesse, charm, perhaps—that 
can’t be taught. 

You ought to see Velasquez’s pictures of the Spanish 
nobility! Doubtless they were all as common as dirt; 
but they have a supreme dignity. Velasquez has given 
them his own dignity. ... Take The Surrender at 
Breda for example. Aside from the quality of the 
painting, there is infinite nobility in the gesture of the 
conqueror. A lesser artist would have made him 
pretentious. I went back again and again to look at 
that canvas. I almost felt like kissing those horses! 

129 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


If a painter has real temperament, he can paint his 
characters just as they are, and still give the picture 
an indefinable charm. Goya’s Royal Family is 
worth the trip to Madrid alone. As painting it is mag- 
nificent, but the king looks like a butcher, and the 
queen, well—she looks as if she had escaped from a 
brothel, if not worse. She is fairly dripping with dia- 
monds! Nobody ever painted diamonds like Goya. 
And how delightfully he has done the little satin slip- 
pers! 

Somewhere in Spain there is a little church with a 
ceiling by Goya. It shows people looking down from 
a balcony above. I was marvelling at it, when a guide 
informed me that a “great painter from Paris” (Jules 
Ch ... ) had been there some time earlier and, after 
one look at the ceiling, had departed with a shrug of 
his shoulders! 

V.: You haven’t told me about the Titians in the 
Prado. 

R.: Ah! Titian has everything. First, mystery; 
then depth. Rubens is just a shell beside him, nothing 
but surface. You almost feel like trying to open the 
cuirass of Philip II to find out what is inside; but 
there is nothing photographic about it; and the flesh 
is fairly alive. In the Venus and in the Organist, the 
limpid quality of that glowing flesh is amazing. You 
actually feel the joy he had in painting it... . I have 
really lived a second life through the pleasure I have 
had from the work of the masters. 

You see how I love Titian; but in spite of every- 
thing I always come back to Velasquez. Far be it 

130 


TRIP TO SPAIN 

from me to put him above Titian, but at Madrid, you 
get the full force of Velasquez because nearly all of his 
work is in one place, whereas most of the fine Titians 
are in other places. Take the portrait of Francis I in 
the Louvre, for instance; what richness it has, what 
simplicity and distinction! There is a man who looks 
every inch a king. How perfect the sleeves are, and 
the slashes in the satin! .. . 

Another thing which struck me particularly at the 
museum in Madrid was a Poussin which has remained 
as fresh as a Boucher, whereas in the Louvre and the 
other galleries, the Poussins are so dirty... . 

V.: How do you account for that? 

R.; I used to think it was because Madrid is 
situated on a plateau where the air is pure; the air is 
good in Munich too, and the paintings are well pre- 
served, but in the Louvre, which is near the Seine, the 
paint becomes rancid. Yet I think the real reason is 
that they have no conservateurs in Spain. 

(Renoir noticed that I was astonished, and went 
on: ) 

I see that you take conservateur in the usual sense of 
the word. Roujon, the Minister of Fine Arts, inter- 
preted my remark in the same way, and was offended 
——naturally! By conservateur | don’t mean the 
gentleman who does nothing but walk about in the halls 
looking important. He can’t do any harm. I mean 
conservateur in the real sense of “restorer.” Spain is a 
poor country and probably can’t afford them; so once 
the pictures are hung, they are left alone. 

V.: In your capacity as executor of the Caillebotte 

131 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 
estate, you must have had more than one quarrel with 
Roujon when the question of admitting the Impression- 
ists into the Luxembourg came up. 

R.: To tell the truth, Roujon and I never could 
agree about anything. Not that he is lacking in in- 
telligence, or that he is not a pleasant enough person. 
But to keep from quarrelling with him, I had to be care- 
ful never to mention any of the painters I really ad- 
mire. 

You can imagine our discussions about the Caille- 
botte Collection. Roujon was quite ready to accept 
the Degas, and also the Manets, though not all, how- 
ever, for he rejected one or two of the latter. But 
he was suspicious of my pictures and didn’t try to 
hide it. 

The only canvas of mine that he accepted with con- 
fidence was the Moulin de la Galette—because Gervex 
appeared in it.2, He regarded the presence of that mas- 
ter as a sort of moral guarantee. On the other hand, 
he was rather disposed to like Monet, Sisley and Pis- 
sarro—not overmuch, though. The amateurs had be- 
gun to buy them. But when he saw the Cézannes! 
Those landscapes of his . . . composed with the pre- 
cision of a Poussin! The colours in the Bathers seem 
to have been ravished from some ancient pottery. 
What supremely wise art! . . . I can still hear Roujon 
saying: 

2Gervex, Henri. A painter who has never decided whether he 
belongs to the school of Cabanel or to the Impressionists. He is 
a popular portrait-painter who has attained to considerable success 
and the usual number of decorations. (Trans. Note.) 


132 


TRIP TO SPAIN 
“If that chap Cézanne only had the vaguest notion 
what painting is!’ 
On leaving the studio, I stopped to look at a study of 
Roses lightly brushed in. ‘That’s an experiment I’m 
making in flesh tones for a nude,” Renoir said. 


133 


CHAPTER FIFTEEN 
LONDON, HOLLAND, MUNICH 


VOLLARD: You have never spoken to me about the 
English School. 

Renoir; The English School? It doesn’t exist. 
They copy everything: one minute they’re doing Rem- 
brandts, the next Claude Lorrains. There is only one 
interesting English painter, Bonington, and you seldom 
hear about him. 

It is a curious fact that it was the Turners which at- 
tracted me to London for the first time. Long ago I 
had seen a reproduction of a Portrait of Turner as a 
young man. It looked exactly like me! But the orig- 
inal was awful. What a difference between him and 
Claude Lorrain, whom he tried so hard to imitate! 
Turner knew nothing about construction. As for his 
so-called audacities—gondolas under a London sky! 
There isn’t a penny’s worth of sincerity in the lot of 
it. I infinitely prefer a primitive who stupidly copies 
a bit of drapery. Imagination doesn’t go very far 
when you don’t rely on Nature. Fortunately the Claude 
Lorrains in London make up for the Turners, the Law- 
rences, and even the Constables. 

I read somewhere that Lorrain painted from instinct 
—as abird sings. That would be very extraordinary in 

134 


FURTHER TRAVELS 


a man who had such a profound knowledge of his craft. 
Everything you read about Claude Lorrain is strange; 
people have even gone so far as to pretend that he got 
others to paint the figures in his pictures. Sometimes 
his figures don’t seem to be very much in the picture, 
but usually they are quite up to scratch. And his ships 
are marvellous too! He was lucky to have lived in an 
age when ships were much more picturesque than they 
are nowadays. ... What wonderful things to paint 
—those old galleons! 

A painter in those days was a painter pure and simple. 
He didn’t even bother about appropriate titles for 
his pictures. Look at that Lorrain in the Louvre, the 
Siege of La Rochelle. Nothing but a few soldiers chat- 
ting in the shade of some beautiful trees! 

That reminds me of a canvas of mine called Wasb- 
House. There wasn’t even the shadow of a wash- 
house in the picture. I wrote those words on the back 
of the canvas because it was painted near a wash-house 
and I wanted to be sure to remember the spot, and 
I forgot to scratch it out afterwards. 

There is a picture by Claude that I recommend if you 
go to London some day: the Embarkation of Saint 
Ursula in the National Gallery. It’s a beautiful thing! 

Those who claim that Lorrain knew nothing ought 
to realize that everybody who came after borrowed 
wholesale from his work . . . any one of his pictures 
will furnish an example. You know his Ox-Driver in 
the Print Museum... Why, Rousseau’s drawings are 
nothing but imitations, although some of them are quite 
fine. Constable, as well as Turner, knew everything 

135 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


Lorrain had to teach. Corot also. But I must admit 
that I like Corot even better than Lorrain.. He had so 
much personality. There’s a man who created trees for 
himself, whereas Claude’s trees smack a little of the con- 
ventional. But there is nothing finer than the still, pure 
air of his landscapes, the profound depths of his skies. 

V.: When you went to Holland, did the Rembrandts 
impress you as much as the Velasquez at Madrid? 

R.: You know how I love Rembrandt; but I find 
him a little “stuffy.” For my part, I have a predilec- 
tion for painting that lends joyousness to a wall. In 
fact, when I look at La Finette . .. People are al- 
ways telling you that Rembrandt is greater than Wat- 
teau in other ways. Good Lord, I know that, but the 
pleasure a picture gives you can’t be measured... . 
When I’m looking at one picture, I simply forget all 
others. Gallimard will never let me alone when we're 
in a gallery together. At Madrid he was always at my 
elbow, murmuring: “I like Rembrandt better.” 

“You and your damned Rembrandt made me tired!” 
I finally burst out. “While I’m in Spain, let me look 
at Velasquez to my heart’s content. When I go to Hol- 
land, it will be time enough to enjoy your Rembrandt.” 

V.: What about the Night Watch? 


1 Renoir said to me one day: “There is a mot of Joyant’s that 
gave me a lot of pleasure. Someone was looking at my picture 
called The Spring. 

“Ah, that man Renoir! He’s never serious, always on a holi- 
Cave ee 

“‘Right you are,’ said Joyant. ‘Painting a woman excites him 
more than embracing her.’” 


136 


FURTHER TRAVELS 

R.: If that picture were mine, I’d cut out the 
woman with the chicken, and I’d sell the rest as rub- 
bish. It can’t approach the Holy Family, or even 
the Carpenter's Wife, in the Louvre, the woman nurs- 
ing a child. There is a glorious beam of light that 
shines through the bars of the window and gilds the 
breast... . 

V.: My favourite Rembrandt is the Jewess Be- 
trothed. 

R.: That’s a Rembrandt after my own heart. But 
the pleasure of seeing the museums in Holland comes 
high. I don’t understand how there can be any healthy 
people left in such a country, with all those poisonous 
canals. And aside from three or four great artists, 
the rest of the school, such as Teniers and the “‘little 
Flemish painters,” is a hopeless bore. Old Louis the 
Fourteenth showed his good sense when he ordered “all 
that truck” out of his sight! 

Nevertheless, I have gloomy Holland to thank for pro- 
ducing the model who posed for that picture there on 
the wall. She was a perfect Madonna. And what a 
virginal skin! You simply can’t imagine the breasts 
that girl had; they were so heavy and firm... and 
the golden shadow made by the fold underneath! Un- 
fortunately she could give very little time to posing, 
because she did not want to give up her work; but | 
was so delighted with her gentleness and with that skin 
which took the light so well, that I wanted to take her 
to Paris with me. I said to myself: “I only hope she 
doesn’t get ruined right away, and that she keeps her 

137 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 
lovely complexion!” So I asked her mother to confide 
her to my care, and promised to see to it that her daugh- 
ter was not molested. 

“But what will she do in Paris, then, if she doesn’t 
‘work’ P” the mother asked, dumbfounded. 

Then I realized the kind of “work” my virgin did! 
Needless to say, my plans went no further. 

V.: You have not told me about your trip to 
Munich. 

R.: That was the last of my travels. I went to 
Munich about 1910 to paint some portraits.2 They 
have a very famous Rembrandt there, the Descent from 
the Cross. But in spite of the great reputation of that 
picture, I must admit I found it a bit chalky. And I 
don’t like the black effect at the bottom of the canvas. 

. However, I saw a thing at the Pinacothek which 
interested me tremendously: a Head of a Woman by 
Rubens, painted thickly instead of with his usual thin 
rubbings. But then as far as Rubens goes, there is 
no need for France to be jealous of any other nation as 
long as the Helena Fourment and Her Children is in 
the Louvre! The white dress is full of dirt, due to the 
layers of filthy varnish they've put on, but it’s magni- 
ficent, just the same. There’s painting for you! 
Nothing can spoil splendid colours. ... Ah! what 
a generous painter Rubens was! He would put a 


2 Renoir. was invited to Munich to paint portraits of the 
Thurneyssen family. On his arrival, he was amazed to find a 
colour-guard and a military band at the station to escort him 
with regal pomp through the streets to the home of his host. 
(Trans. Note.) 

138 


(8881) ONIMVUC AO 








FURTHER TRAVELS 

hundred figures in a picture without turning a hair! 
Speaking of Rubens, you have no idea the surprise I 
got when they opened the new Rubens room in the 
Louvre! Someone told me they’d put a lot of bright 
gold frames around the pictures. But there is no 
use talking, they are better than before in spite of all the 
gilt.s And hanging them straight like frescoes, instead 
of at an angle, has helped them immensely. 


3 Renoir always recommended frames of bright gold for his own 
pictures, 


139 


CHAPTER SIXTEEN 
RENOIR AT PONT-AVEN 


Renoir: About 1892 Gallimard and I went to Pont- 
Aven. I had been told it was one of the most beautiful 
spots in Brittany and quite far from the sea. The sea 
air has never agreed with me, you know; in fact 
it was during a summer by the sea that I began to be 
seriously troubled with rheumatism. 

I thought that so far away from Paris, I would 
have a few days of rest without hearing a word about 
art. Well, we arrived at Pont-Aven right in the midst 
of an International Exhibition! And never did an ex- 
hibition better deserve the name, for there were paint- 
ers from every corner of the globe at Julia’s and at 
Gloannec’s, the two inns of the town. 

At Gloannec’s I observed a young man working on 
some very curious tapestries. It was Emile Bernard. 
Gauguin was there too; he had somehow got the idea 
that he ought to put all the artists who were “painting 
black” on the right track. There was a poor hunchback 
named Haan—who up to then had made his living do- 
ing Meissoniers—whom Gauguin dragged into the 
maelstrom of the painting of the future. But his pic- 
tures stopped selling the very day that he yielded to 
Gauguin’s imperious advice and substituted the ver- 
milion on his palette for bitumen. The most as- 
tonishing person I met at Pont-Aven was a Monsieur— 

140 


RENOIR AT PONT-AVEN 


well, never mind the name. He was one of those funny 
little bourgeois who still dressed after the fashion of the 
time of Louis Philippe. He had heard painting talked 
about so much that he wanted to try it himself. But 
due to his natural ineptitude, he had to content himself 
with putting his name to the unsuccessful pictures that 
others had given him. One of his “works” figured in 
the International Exhibition: a landscape in which 
someone for a joke had painted a boat on the top of a 
tree. The poor chap was never able to explain the 
phenomenon, for he was certain that he had handed 
over to the committee a landscape with no sign of a 
boat in it. 

At Julia’s there was an American woman who dabbled 
a little in painting, and who had already come to me for 
criticism in Paris. I could be of no help to her, for she © 
felt herself attracted more towards Puvis de Chavannes; 
but she held me responsible for her lack of progress. 
She was perpetually rummaging around in my colour- 
box. 

“T’m positive you’re hiding something from me. . . 
she would say. 

One day I cut myself with a palette knife. I have 
never been able to stand the sight of blood, my own 
particularly. I was afraid I was going to be sick. My 
“pupil” came to the rescue, but just as she was about 
to wrap up my finger, she happened to glance at my 
palette; she dropped the bandage, and cried in a voice 
full of indignation: 

“What! Venetian red? You never told me you 
used that!” 


9) 


14] 


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 
THE PORTRAIT OF MADAME MORISOT 


I was looking through the racks where Renoir kept his 
pictures. 

“The pastel you have in your hand, Vollard, is in 
the very middle of the ‘dry’ period,’ said Renoir. “I 
have had more than one chance to sell it, now that the 
collectors don’t care a rap how a thing is done, and 
think of nothing but the signature. But I really 
couldn’t sell that: it is the portrait of Madame Morisot 
and her daughter.” 

“Did you know Madame Morisot well?” I inquired. 

“Yes. My friendship with her has been one of the 
finest I have ever had. I remember the wonderful 
evenings Mallarmé and | used to spend at her house. 
It was a great treat to hear Mallarmé talk, but I never 
could understand much of his writing. 

“And as for Madame Morisot-herself—what a curious 
thing fate is! A painter with such a definite tempera- 
ment born into the most austerely bourgeois milieu that 
ever was, and at a time when a child who wanted to 
be an artist was considered little short of a dishonour 
to the family! And what an anomaly too, in our age 
of realism, to find a painter so impregnated with the 
grace and delicacy of the eighteenth century; she was 

142 


THE PORTRAIT OF MADAME MORISOT 


the last elegant and ‘feminine’ artist that we have had 
since Fragonard, not to mention that ‘virginal’ some- 
thing that she had to such a high degree in all of her 
painting. 

“Madame Morisot’s first teacher was Corot. He had 
conceived a great friendship for her; so much so that - 
one day when she asked him the price of one of his 
pictures—a Corot which to-day would be worth a couple 
of hundred thousand francs—he replied: ‘For you it 
will be a thousand francs!’ 

“You can imagine the long faces of the parents when 
the young girl, all excitement, came to announce this 
‘favour’ from her teacher... . 


“Papa Corot had an immense respect for Nature. 
One day his pupil showed him a copy that she had done 
of one of his pictures, and he said: ‘You must do that 
over. Your tree has one branch less than mine.’ 

“Will you do me a favour, Vollard?” continued 
Renoir. “I have been told that the Society of Friends 
of the Luxembourg would like to buy something of 
mine. I know that the majority of those people don’t 
think much of what I paint. One of them, a very well- 
known collector, told me frankly that my pictures made 
him positively ill! 

“The society deserves all the more credit—don’t you 
thinkr—for wanting to make me one of its protégés. 
. . . Well, I would make them a present of the Portrait 
of Madame Morisot, if it didn’t look too much as if I 
were trying to force the doors of a museum. Do you 
know Monsieur Chéramy, the president? He has a lot 

143 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 
of Corots. I remember, incidentally, having seen the 
Terraces at Genoa at his house; it’s a gem; it is painted 
like a Titian. 

“Would you mind taking my pastel to this Monsieur 
Chéramy and telling him that I will sell it to the society 
for... well, let us say a hundred francs? Then 
I won’t have anything on my conscience.” 

I did as Renoir requested. Hardly had I mentioned 
the painter’s name when Chéramy exclaimed: 

“Lots of talent! Perhaps he would like me to recom- 
mend him to the patrons of our society? Tell him he 
can count on my good will; I am familiar with his fine 
drawings in the Illustration.” 

“But this is a question of one of his paintings,” I 
protested. 

“Lots of talent, too, as far as colour goes. Please 
assure him of my interest! I am familiar with the 
Moulin de la Galette, and | have even encouraged your 
Renoir by a personal purchase, a Portrait of Wagner. 
Ah, Wagner! What a magnificent talent!” 

I explained the object of my visit. When I had 
mentioned the price, a hundred francs, Monsieur Chér- 
amy replied: 

“Obviously a hundred francs is not the devil of a lot. 
But of course the purchases of our society cannot be 
decided like that, on the spur of the moment. Have 
Monsieur Renoir make a formal request. Doesn’t he 
know somebody who knows Bonnat? Bonnat is the 
final judge on our purchases. And he is very strict 
about drawing!” 

As I bade him good-bye, someone brought in a 

144 


THE PORTRAIT OF MADAME MORISOT, 


picture, carefully done up, which Monsieur Chéramy 
himself helped to place on the easel. Turning to me, 
he said: 

“Now you shall see the work of a master who knows 
how to combine colour and drawing!” 

With meticulous care the president of the Society of 
Friends of the Luxembourg uncovered the picture, and 
I beheld a Group of Nudes by La Touche... . 


145 


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 
THE FAMILY 


“Do you need Gabrielle and La Boulangére this morn- 
ing?’ Renoir asked his wife. “I want them to pose for 
a picture of bathers.” 

Madame Renoir managed to get along without 
them. 

“Caillebotte, the brother of the collector,’ Renoir 
continued, turning to me, “said to me once: ‘It’s 
extraordinary, but I have never been able to have 
bouillabaisse made at my house the way they make it 
at the Renoirs’. . . . And I have a real cook too. All 
that Renoir asks of a cook is that she have a “skin 
that takes the light’! ” 

That was all very well, but he forgot that Madame 
~ Renoir could cook too. . . . 

I wonder if it is generally known that it is largely due 
to his wife that Renoir painted all his wonderful still- 
lifes of flowers. She knew what pleasure it gave him 
to paint flowers, but she realized that the trouble of 
going to get them was too much for him. So she always 
had them about the house in those pretty fifteen-cent 
green pots that Renoir used to like to look at in the 
shop windows. And she would laugh when Renoir, 

146 





LA BOHEMIENNE 





THE FAMILY 


seeing a new bouquet which she had carefully arranged, 
would say: 

“Flowers are so pretty when they are put in any old 
way. I must paint that.” 

Another no less important part of Renoir’s work was 
the studies of his own children. It is doubtful if he 
ever would have painted them if they had been like the 
little rich children, brought up by a nurse or fed on the 
bottle, that he used to paint when he had to accept 
commissions! 

I used to go to see Renoir as a rule on Sunday morn- 
ing. About eleven o’clock Madame Renoir would say: 
“Ts there anything you want, Renoir? I am going to 
mass.” 

“It is marvelous how you manage everything!” I 
said. I had found her shelling peas, with little Jean 
on her lap. He was teething and therefore not behaving 
very well. “To think that you even find time to go to 
mass!”’ 

Madame Renoir got up brusquely. 

“Oh, dear, the brushes haven’t been cleaned!” And, 
dropping the peas and little Jean, who suddenly stopped 
crying—for he realized, with the intuition children 
have, that it would do no good to make a noise if his 
mother could not hear him—Madame Renoir flew into 
the next room. She came back with a handful of 
brushes. 

“Renoir says that I clean his brushes better than 
Gabrielle... .” 


Finally fame, prosperity, even fortune came to 
147 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


Renoir.t But at the same time came the scourge of 
rheumatism, which, before very long, was to nail him 
fast to his chair. 

“How I long for those days!” Madame Renoir said 
to me one day, referring to their trip to Italy. I was 
on the point of remarking: “But Renoir wasn't selling 
then, was he?’ I checked myself in time, however, 
realizing the meaning of her regret: in those days her 
husband was still in good health. 

Renoir finally devoted himself wholly to his art, which 
expanded and developed in spite of his infirmities, or, 
paradoxically, because of those infirmities, for, having 
to keep perfectly quiet, there was nothing to distract 
him: he thought of nothing but painting. He turned 
the knotted hands and the legs, which each day became 
a little stiffer, to account.?... Finally the acute 
suffering of the first days nearly vanished, his general 
health even improved, and Madame Renoir could al- 
most say that she was happy again; then the war broke 
out. 

The two eldest sons, Pierre and Jean, enlisted im- 
mediately. 

I had gone to the Renoirs’ to ask for news of them. 
There were other callers. Everybody was optimistic. 

Dorival, the actor, a friend of the family, had just 

1At the Doria sale in 1899, La Pensée brought 22,100 francs. 


Renoir had sold it less than twenty years before for 150 francs. 
(Author’s Note.) 

2 Monsieur Bérard, the collector, found Rendin one day in terri- 
ble pain. He never got over his astonishment because Renoir had 
said: “Really, I am a lucky man. Now I can do nothing but 
paint.” 

148 


THE FAMILY 


brought an “extra” which announced a thunderous ad- 
vance in Lorraine. | 

Everyone was discussing the event, when Monsieur Z., 
a deputy, arrived with further tidings. 

“I have just left the War Ministry,” he said, still a 
little out of breath from having run up the stairs four 
at a time. The ministers have just had a conference, 
and the government thinks that the Russian steam-roller 
will reach Berlin by the first days of October [1914] 
at the latest... .” 

When the visitors had departed, Renoir said: 

“For the first time I am really beginning to feel un- 
easy. Everybody seems to be going mad.” 

“But the Germans are retreating,” I protested. 

“That’s just the trouble 

“Well, the Russian steam-roller is no joke!” 

Renoir shrugged his shoulders. ‘Just look at the 
distance they have to go on the map... . It reminds 
me of my friend Norvin, who wanted to shoulder a gun 
and run to Berlin. Well, one day before the war I met 
him near the Opera and suggested that we take a little 
walk to Asnieres, about five miles beyond the city 
walls. 

“ “What! he replied, aghast. ‘Do you think you can 
go on foot to Asniéres?’ ” 





Renoir had taken up his brushes, but he was so 
tormented by the thought of his sons that he was unable 
to finish the little still-life—a cup and two lemons— 
that he was working on. 

149 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


“IT can’t paint any more!” he said of a sudden, letting 
his arms fall. 

Madame Renoir, who was knitting a soldier’s muffler, 
took off her glasses, looked at her husband, and, without 
saying a word, stifled a sigh and lowered her head again 
over her work. Renoir, in an effort to hide his appre- 
hension, started to work again, but mechanically—it 
was the first time I had seen him paint without passion. 
He began to hum one of his favourite airs, a tune from 
La Belle Héléne. But there was no life in it. 


Nevertheless, news from the “children” arrived regu- 
larly. The graphic letters they wrote to their parents 
confirmed what the papers said about the joyous life 
of the poilus. Renoir and his wife were beginning to 
breathe freely again, when out of a clear sky came the 
news that Pierre, the eldest, was in a hospital at Carcas- 
sonne, his forearm fractured. 

“T suppose I ought to think myself lucky, consider- 
ing what might have happened,” said Madame Renoir 
when she came back from Carcassonne; “I hope that 
Jean S 

But Jean, unable to bear the inactivity which was the 
fate of the cavalry, secured a transfer to the Chasseurs 
Alpins. 

“Just think, mamma, I have a béret. .. .” The béret 
was the cap the Blue Devils were so proud of. 

And then word came that Jean was in the hospital at 
Gérardmer. 

“At least he isn’t fatally wounded,’ said Madame 
Renoir, reading the letter to her husband. 

150 





THE FAMILY 

“I suppose not,” said Renoir, forcing himself to be 
calm. 

Jean took it as a joke. His thigh had been punctured 
by a bullet. “The doctor,” he wrote, “tells me my leg 
will be stiff for atime. What luck! They'll be taking 
me for an officer now!’ Madame Renoir left for 
Gérardmer the same day. 

“You'll see,” said Renoir. “I know perfectly well 
that if I receive a telegram with too many details, it 
will be because they want to hide something from me.” 

A short and optimistic dispatch arrived; but Renoir 
was not in the least reassured. 

“T am sure they are going to cut off his leg. I think 
I'll write to Clémentel. You laugh because I’m think- 
ing of asking the Minister of Commerce to keep them 
from cutting off a leg? You know very well that no- 
body is in his right place in this war. Think of the 
director of a theatre as chief surgeon of a hospital! 
Doctor Abel Desjardins was reprimanded by the Under- 
Secretary of State for Hygiene because his report, in 
proportion to the number of beds in his ward, did not 
show as many amputated arms and legs as the ward 
next door.” 


My bedroom was next to Renoir’s; I could hear him 
moaning all night. The least distraction kept him from 
sleeping, and in his restless condition, his infirmities 
gave him particular trouble, but did not lessen his 
energy. When he was seventy-eight, he was carried 
groaning to the studio, after a sleepless night, and his 
strength came back under the stimulus of his work. 

151 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


The telephone rang. It was the Cagnes post office, 
which was rather far from Les Collettes, calling to give 
the contents of a telegram that had just arrived for 
Renoir. Jean was to keep his leg. He had fallen into 
the hands of a major who preferred to let the leg get 
well rather than cut it off—an ambitionless major, who 
got nothing for his forbearance but reprimands. 


After all the excitement Jean and Pierre had caused, 
peace settled again upon Les Collettes. Madame Renoir 
could go back to her chickens and her rabbits with a 
tranquil heart. 

It was the season for gathering orange-blossoms. I 
recollected that Renoir had told me when he bought Les 
Collettes that one could make a good living from the 
fruit alone. I asked Madame Renoir if the property 
was making a good return. 

“Well, if Renoir were younger,” she replied, “and we 
could work the garden together . . . But I suppose we 
have done best to count on his painting!” 


152 


CHAPTER NINETEEN 
ESSOYES, CAGNES 


On a day in 1912, Renoir spoke to me about a marvel- 
ous spot only two or three steps from Paris. 

“But you mustn’t tell about it,’ he said. “It is a 
unique place for a painter: there’s a pond with sand— 
real sand, you understand—and lilies on the water! 
And there’s hardly anybody at the hotel, and a very 
good hotel it is, too. It’s a wonderful place to knock 
off masterpieces!” 

This place, which he thought so well hidden, was 
none other than Chaville, a rendezvous for Parisians 
on Sunday. I went out there to visit Renoir, who by 
this time could no longer use his legs, and found him 
at an inn, where the staircase was so narrow that the 
servants had to carry him down in their arms in the 
morning, and, what was still more painful, hoist him 
up again in the evening. 

Decidedly he had no instinct for comfort or for mak- 
ing himself at home. But fortunately his family and 
friends had it for him; so in 1898 he became the owner 
of a house in Essoyes, Madame Renoir’s native town. 

“A real bargain!” she told her husband. “A fine old 
peasant house built of real stone.” 

153 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 

Renoir always fought shy of bargains, in the belief 
that the sauce costs more than the fish. This time, 
however, with his old hatred for the bourgeois, he let 
himself be persuaded by the prospect of living in a 
peasant’s house; but he soon learned to his regret that 
it was a bargain only because it had to be done almost 
all over from top to bottom to make it habitable. 

But once he was a landowner in Essoyes, he spent 
one or two months out of each year there. And, with 
his ability to adapt himself readily to his surroundings, 
he was in a very short time considered by the townsfolk 
as one of themselves, which is the greatest mark of 
esteem that the country-bred man can show to the city- 
dweller. 

Even though the good people of Essoyes were unani- 
mous in their belief that Renoir was not able to “take 
a portrait” as well as the photographer in the neighbour- 
ing town, they were soon persuaded that for advice on 
country matters, such as vine-cutting, the artist knew 
quite as much as Firmin, the overseer of the chateau 
lands. 

One of the qualities of the soil of Essoyes is that it 
produces a wine which rivals the very finest vintages 
of Champagne. When the law governing wine distri- 
bution was passed, the delight of the inhabitants knew 
no bounds; but the representatives of Essoyes ultimately 
found that to call their wine “champagne” even though 
it were distilled in the Champagne region, required 
more influence than they were able to wield. Conse- 
quently Renoir had all he could do to evade the en- 
treaties of his new fellow-townspeople, who doubted 

154 





NURSE AND CHILD (1903) 


Jean Renoir Collection, Marlotte 


Ww 





ESSOYES AND CAGNES 
not that such a well-spoken man could, by saying a 
word at Paris, have the real name of their wine bestowed 
upon it legally. 

Another time, a delegation came from the neighbour- 
ing village to complain to the painter that their school- 
mistress was to be dismissed because she refused to 
accept the attentions of the mayor! Renoir felt that 
this time he could be of service, for he was acquainted 
with a Member of Parliament who had asked if he could 
do him any favours. Once back in Paris, Renoir ex- 
plained the facts to the representative of the people, 
and that gentleman replied, rubbing his hands: “Why 
of course! I’ll get my friend Briand?! to give your 
mayor the sack!” 

But a few days later, the Member of Parliament came 
to call. j 

“Can't do anything for your school-teacher! The 
mayor belongs to the Party!” 


Up to the time when the doctors ordered Renoir to 
live in the Midi during the winter, he went to Essoyes 
every summer. But when he was forced to live from 
October to June in a sunny climate, he divided his 
summers between the Champagne country and the 
capital. 

“| have to go back to Paris from time to time,” he 
said to me one day. “Otherwise .. .” 

“But when you are in Paris, you can’t eat,” I 
protested. “And you can’t work there, the air is 
PUD Reiss 

1 President of the Council. 


155 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 

“Yes, I know... but it’s Paris air, just the 
Same Oat 

When he returned to the Midi, he loved to loiter along 
the way, stopping at any place that took his fancy. 
Once, after he had seen two little arches of an old 
Roman bridge at Saint-Chamas from a train window, 
he could not be happy until he had gone there to paint. 

When Renoir found himself obliged to live almost 
completely in the South, Magagnosc was his first choice. 
Magagnosc is a Provencal village strangely perched on 
the side of a mountain, with vestiges reminiscent of a 
Spanish town. At that time, he was still able although 
with difficulty, to use his legs. We took walks together 
on the mountain, and ate vine-thrushes which Madame 
Renoir used to roast on a spit turned in front of a hot 
fire made from vine-branches. 

After two or three years of Magagnosc, Renoir com- 
plained of the cold in the mountains, and went to live 
at Cannet. Finally he moved to Cagnes, which had 
been recommended for the purity of its air. But the 
pure air existed only in upper Cagnes, and Renoir 
did not find the swampy plain of lower Cagnes at all to 
his liking. Once settled, however, he could never bring 
himself to break away. He would have continued to 
spend his winters there, if a certain piece of land called 
Les Collettes, which was half-way up the hill and 
planted with fine old olive-trees, had not been put up 
for sale. Was it not said that these olive-trees (they 
were at least a thousand years old, so the people round 
about affirmed) were soon to be converted into wooden 

156 


ESSOYES AND CAGNES 


spoons, napkin rings, paper weights and other “souvenirs 
of Jerusalem’? Such an idea was unbearable to Renoir, 
and he bought Les Collettes to save the trees. When 
the property was purchased, he decided to build a house. 
The result was that charming home which Madame 
Renoir designed and supervised herself. 

Arriving one day at the old house in Cagnes, while 
the new one was still under construction—the “Chateau ~ 
des Collettes,’ as it was called in the town—I found 
Renoir sitting in his wheel-chair at the window. He 
could not take his eyes from the landscape before 
him. 

“Would you like to do a picture from here?” I asked 
him. - 

“T wasn't thinking of that,” he replied. “But they 
promised me that by to-day I would see the roof of my 
house above the trees up there!” 

There was a note of apprehension in his voice at the 
thought of settling down to a “bourgeois” life. But who 
can escape from the fatality of things? 

When the “chateau” was finished, Renoir found, little 
by little, that it was good to have his ease, and that Les 
Collettes in no way resembled the house of lower Cagnes, 
which he had been obliged to share with the post office. 
But though his new home was well arranged, it was so 
isolated that he later regretted the life and movement 
that made the post-office house interesting. 

In spite of his horror of things mechanical, the new 
“chatelain” resigned himself to owning an automobile. 
It proved to be the most convenient means of getting 

37, 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


out to paint in the country, which he persisted in doing 
to the end, even when he could no longer use his legs. 


“You see all the worry my husband gives himself,” 
said Madame Renoir one day when the painter came 
back from the fields in a push-cart, which jolted at 
every pebble in spite of its rubber tires. “The public 
appreciates his work; dealers are always coming down 
from Paris to buy his pictures. . . . Then why, when 
they write about him, do they say such ridiculous 
things! Somebody just showed me another paper—they 
don’t know what they’re talking about. When I arrived 
yesterday, I said to myself: ‘How gloomy the dining- 
room is!’ I had brought back from Paris three or four 
little canvases, some Roses, a Head of Gabrielle—things 
he had worked on for barely an hour. When I put 
them up on the wall—voila, the dining-room was a 
different place; it was bright again!” 

Madame Renoir relapsed into silence; I had never 
heard her talk so much about painting before! 


158 


CHAPTER TWENTY, 
THE MODELS AND THE MAIDS 


Renoir: Gabrielle! Gabrielle! She’s gone already! 
And my palette isn’t set yet. 

Vollard: ill you permit me to help? 

R.: Zut! I won't work this morning. 

An elderly lady who had come to call: Isn't that girl 
ever in? 

R. (after the lady’s departure): These house- 
wives! They’re extraordinary !—even the best of them. 
That Madame Jaurés for instance. Everybody will tell 
you she’s‘a perfect angel. Well, just try to make an 
angel understand that a housemaid is human like any 
other'woman! 

I must say, though, that Gabrielle does take it easy. 
If she only wouldn’t put me out so! When she 
comes back I’ll ask her why she stayed out so long. 
Then she'll say: “But, sir, | didn’t go anywhere. I 
only wanted to get some news of Mother Thingumbob 
who is just getting out of the hospital to-day.” You 
know my housekeeper, Mamma Thingumbob, and her 
husband, Papa Thingumbob, with his red belt and 
Tyrolese hat. 

There was a sound of footsteps on the stairs. 

159 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 
R.: There’s Gabrielle now! Ill give her a piece 
of my mind this time. 

Gabrielle (on seeing her master trying to look severe) : 
Please, sir, I didn’t go out, sir. I just went over for 
five minutes to se Mamma Thingumbob. I hear she’s 
back from the hospital, but she wasn’t in. 

R.: Five minutes! Well, of all the cheek! Ga- 
brielle, I’ve told you a hundred times, if I’ve told you 
once: you’re no different from the rest. Now I don't 
want to make a prisoner of you... 


But just then who should come in but Mamma 
Thingumbob herself, and while she was down on hands 
and knees in the studio setting up Claude’s leaden 
soldiers, Renoir said: “Well, your daughter ought to 
be pleased with the place I got for her with that friend 
of mine.” 

Mamma Thingumbob: No, sir. He didn’t act like 
a gentleman. The other day he said to my daughter, 
right to her face, too: ‘To-morrow you must make 
some jam.’ My daughter was taken right off her feet, 
so she spoke right up to him and said: “I'll do it some 
other time. I’m going on a picnic in the country to- 
morrow.’ Then the gentleman said: “Oh, no, my 
girl, you won't do anything of the kind, because you're 
fired right here and now!” That isn’t the way to speak 
to a decent young girl, is it, sir? 

Gabrielle (to Mamma Thingumbob): Things must 
be awfully slow for your husband, without anything to 
do, now that the roofing-workers are on strike. 

Mamma Thingumbob: No, he’s working himself to 

160 


MODELS AND MAIDS 
death right now, seeing as how they have given 
him the job of looking after the interests of the widows 
and orphans during the strike; and that’s no laughing 
matter, with the way the “cops” are murdering the poor 
defenceless workmen. But when Papa Thingumbob 
comes round, the police are mighty respectful, because 
he doesn’t look like a workman. He has the same 
tastes as rich people, he has! Every Sunday he has 
his leg of mutton with plenty of garlic. 

Renoir (alone with me, Mamma Thingumbob having 
followed Gabrielle): Did you hear the old woman! 
But I must say I’d rather put up with a hundred Mamma 
Thingumbobs than one “intellectual” female! ... 

The door-bell rang, followed by Gabrielle’s voice 
calling: ‘Louise, if that’s a young man with a funny 
face who talks through his nose, kick him out! He’s 
always asking to see Monsieur Renoir. He looks like 
an artist.” 

Renoir: Go and see who it is, Vollard. No, never. 
mind. It’s the cook. Gabrielle has a perfect mania 
for chasing away anyone who looks like a painter. If 
I let her do as she pleased, I’d have an even worse 
collection of bores on my hands. Did you hear the 
fine trick she played on me just the other day? 

“Somebody came who insisted on seeing you,” she 
said, “but even though he had cut off his beard and 
put on his Sunday clothes, I knew who it was, all 
right—it was the garde champétre. 1 wouldn't let 
him in.” 

Who do you think her garde champétre was? Mon- 
sieur Joulon, the prefect himself! 

161 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


And another time she wrote to Zoller, who had just 
been decorated, that we had all learned with great 
pleasure that he had been made a Knight of the Foreign 
Legion! ... 


Just at this point a visitor arrived; it was the little 
fellow who talked through his nose. He carried a lily in 
one hand and a lorgnette in the other. 

Visitor (addressing Renoir): I would like to have 
you paint my portrait. I don’t care about the likeness 
so long as my character is preserved. 

Renoir: Don’t go, Vollard. There is somebody 
coming that you would enjoy seeing. (Then, turning 
brusquely to the man with the lily: ) 

You wouldn’t like the kind of portraits I paint. 

The young man, somewhat discomfited by the fact 
that the studio had so little of the museum about it, 
was taking his leave with one of those sententious 
“Master . . .” phrases on his lips, which always made 
Renoir’s flesh creep. Just then the friend that Renoir 
was expecting arrived. He turned out to be the poet 
Léon Dierx, my compatriot of the Isle of Bourbon, 
whom I had never met before. 

Renoir had said to me one day: 

“The only trouble with Dierx is that he has never 
desired anything for himself,’ nor been envious of any- 

1After more than thirty years in government offices, Dierx 
never rose above a clerkship. When someone remarked what 
a pity it was, the “Prince of Poets” replied with a smile: “Believe 
me or not, a poet isn’t good for much. I'll never forget the letter 


162 


MODELS AND MAIDS 

body. Only once did I ever hear him speak ill of 
anyone——he said of Madame de Sévigné: ‘‘She’s 
the most terrible bore I know of!” 

Dierx fully accepted Renoir’s earlier manner. “What 
a fine picture 7 be Loge is!” he said one day. “If only 
Renoir didn’t have such a weakness for red nowa- 
days! ...’ But when someone pointed out that this 
new manner of Renoir’s was much appreciated by the 
public, the poet replied: “I know another painter who 
uses a great deal of red like Renoir, so I suppose it 
will soon be his turn to sell.” 

Dierx came into the studio beaming: 

“Renoir, I’ve just heard the funniest thing! A young 
poet recited to me some verses about an adolescent boy 

. a virgin. My housekeeper suddenly stopped 

her work and looked up from the floor in ecstasy. 
‘Monsieur, I beg your pardon for interrupting, but I 
hear you talking about a young man who still has his 
Virginity, and it reminds me of the most beautiful 
memory of my life! Just as you see me kneeling here, 
except for its being more than forty years ago, I once 
took the virginity of a young man!’ 

““And what did it feel like to take a young man’s 
virginity?’ I asked her. 

“ ‘Well, sir, it’s something you really can’t talk about, 
but it was gorgeous!’ ” 


somebody in the service asked me to write one day. We got an 
indignant protest in short order. The letter was intended for an 
Archiviste; 1 had written, Monsieur Anarchiste! ...’ (Author’s 
Note.) 


163 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


Gabrielle did not appear entirely disposed to share 
the sentiments of the poet’s housekeeper; she apparently 
held all men for deceivers, but she liked the stronger 
sex none the less. 

One evening I went to take dinner with Renoir at 
Louveciennes. 

“Look at Gabrielle and her soldiers,’ Madame Renoir 
said to me. I saw two soldiers perched on the kitchen 
window-sill, and Gabrielle was handing them jam-tarts 
through the grating. A moment later, Madame 
Renoir went into the kitchen and found Gabrielle giv- 
ing them soup. 

“Gabrielle, you’re crazy! Soup after sweets!” 

The girl began to be uneasy; she hesitated with a 
spoonful of soup in the air behind the grilling. I re- 
assured her by saying that there were some people who 
ate soup for dessert, and that it was especially popular 
around Lyons. 

“That’s fine,” answered one of the men; “the regiment 
is booked to go to Lyons next.” 

So Gabrielle extended the waiting spoonful to the 
soldiers, with no further fears for their health. 

Renoir had called for a liqueur after the coffee; but 
the carafe was empty. 

“I gave a drop or two to the soldiers,’ explained 
Gabrielle. | 
“But how do you expect them to find their camp in 
the forest if you’ve given them drinks?” asked Madame 

Renotr. 

Gabrielle snatched up a handkerchief and wrapped it 
around her head. 

164 





i Wil 


od Tea b 





MODELS AND MAIDS 

“Where are you going?” inquired Renoir. 

“Eh? I’m going after them. It won't be so hard 
to find the camp road if there are three of us.” 

Gabrielle was very fond of bright colours. One day 
Renoir asked her for a neckerchief, and Gabrielle fas- 
tened around his neck a large red affair with white polka 
dots. Thus arrayed, Renoir went to the bank accom- 
panied by Gabrielle, who was also rather conspicuously 
dressed. 

When Renoir presented the cheque which he had 
come to cash, the clerk refused to honour it. 

“But it’s Monsieur Renoir!” Gabrielle protested. 
“Why, he’s even been decorated!” and, opening her 
purse, she took out a red rosette of an Officer of the 
Legion of Honour. .. . 

I happened in at that moment. Renoir still held the 
cheque in his hand, but he was looking at a little 
working-girl who stood in line at the teller’s window. 

“Look, Vollard, she’s exactly like Marie, do you re- 
member? When her cheeks were still ripe peaches! 
I’d give anything to paint that child. Won’t you go 
and see if she will pose for mer” 

Gabrielle had already started forward, but Renoir 
held her back. He was afraid that too much haste 
would frighten the girl away. 

I was rather at a loss to know how to make the pro- 
posal. All I could think of to say was: “Mademoi- 
selle, | come with the best of intentions . . .” 

“What do you mean?” she asked, on her guard. 

“That gentleman you see over there would like to 
take a picture of you in colour.” 

165 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 

“Well, sir, I’m still pretty young, you know... 

I assured her that her virtue would be in no danger. 

“That’s what they all say at the start. Ill come 
with my big sister.” 

I was in the studio when she arrived; she stood stiff 
as a poker. 

“T’ll never be able to do anything with her,’ Renoir 
grumbled. “She’s swallowed a ramrod.” 

But just then one of the models who was sewing on 
a hat pricked her finger and cried “Merde!” This ex- 
clamation apparently gave the new-comer confidence, 
for she immediately assumed a thoroughly natural pose. 

I found Gabrielle one day examining a diamond ring 
on her finger. 

“Look how it sparkles, Madame!” she said to Renoir’s 
wife. “It came from the Rue de la Paix. It says so 
on the box.” 

“lve never had such a pretty ring as that my- 
self,’ said Madame Renoir, who cared really very little 
for jewellery. 

I was rather surprised to see Renoir examine the 
ring attentively. 

“Just look, Vollard, they don’t even know how to set 
a stone nowadays!” Then, turning to Gabrielle: 

“Was it Monsieur Evrard gave you this ring? Yes? 
That’s the way it goes! As a special favour I put his 
little boy into the picture he ordered, and you're the 
one who gets the ring!” He began to laugh. 

“Vollard, I’ll soon have to do like that Dutch painter, 
the fellow who painted a pasture scene with one more 
sheep than the number agreed upon, and when he 

166 


99 


MODELS AND MAIDS 


couldn’t get any extra money for it, he painted out the 
sheep before delivering the picture!” 

Madame Renoir was the only one who was interested 
In the future of the ring. 

“What are you going to do with it, Gabrielle? You 
will lose it, and it’s worth quite a bit of money.” 

“He told me when he gave it to me,” answered Ga- 
brielle, “that if I took it to the jeweller he would buy 
it back for a thousand francs.” 

“Why, that’s fine, Gabrielle! You must go right 
away to the Rue de la Paix; you can put the money in 
the savings bank, or else you can buy a grape farm near 
your home with it.” 

But Gabrielle: 

“I don't trust the Government. I’m afraid of farms, 
too. There are too many kinds of bugs on the vines! 
Diamonds are so pretty to look at; see how it sparkles!” 
And, ring on finger, Gabrielle went back to polishing 
the furniture... . 

But foresight was not one of Gabrielle’s strong points. 
One day, at Les Collettes, she let two tramps into the 
kitchen, and cut them large slices of pdaté. 

“But you are not thinking what you’re doing, Ga- 
brielle,’” said Madame Renoir. “They won't be satis- 
fied afterwards with just their bread and cheese, and 
they won’t get any more paté.” 

Madame Renoir was mistaken. In the middle of the 
night, the vagabonds returned to the kitchen, which was 
locked with a simple bolt, and ate the rest of the paté. 
But they were not a bad sort, and they did not set fire 
to the house on leaving. 

167 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 

One evening Madame Edwards came to call for 
Renoir to take him to the Russian Ballet. Renoir was 
already suffering from rheumatism, and could scarcely 
walk. 

It goes without saying that people never asked Renoir 
to put on evening clothes. Even to see the Russian 
Ballet, he would never go so far as to get himself up in 
a costume which he found irksome and ridiculous. 

But one can easily imagine the general surprise of the 
audience to see a man in a grey suit and bicycle cap in 
the front row of one of the boxes. 

All at once the door of the box opened. It was Ga- 
brielle. 

“I couldn’t see up there where I was. It’s better here. 
Nobody can say I’m dressed too loud, can they?” And 
Gabrielle, in a high-necked black dress, seated herself 
beside her master. 


If Renoir used his servants for his models, it was 
simply because he disliked nothing so much as the “‘pro- 
fessional.” And after he had got a model well ‘worked 
into his brushes,” it was a great annoyance for him to 
change. Age made no difference to him. One day he 
was greatly taken with a pretty girl whom he saw for 
the first time. 

“I’m going to paint a wonderful nude!” 

He executed the picture, but the pose was decidedly 
too rigid. So he got another very pretty model, and 
painted a second figure over the first, but still he was 
not satisfied. 

“It’s a long, hard job,” he said tome. “I’m going to 

168 


MODELS AND MAIDS 

try to find Louison again. . . . The trouble is that her 
buttocks are all gone. . . . She has no breasts any more, 
and her belly has fallen. ... When I think of the 
first time I met her on the Boulevard Clichy with a bit 
of blue ribbon at her neck .. . that was thirty years 
ago! What acurve her belly had!” So Renoir hunted 
up his former model, searched out the curve of the 
stomach again under the coarsening flesh, and painted 
his finest nude. 

Gabrielle posed a great many times, either alone or 
with Jean in her arms, and, later, Claude. She figures 
also in the large picture of the family. One day | saw 
Gabrielle in the studio with a Phrygian bonnet on her 
head and her hair down her back. 

Renoir: Doesn’t she look like a boy, saiacdie ] 
have always wanted to do a Paris; and I have never 
been able to find the right model. What a Paris she'll 
make! 

In fact, he did make some drawings and two or three 
canvases from her representing Paris Offering the Apple 
to Venus. That is also how he came to make his bas- 
relief of The Judgment of Paris and a large statue, 
Venus Victorious. 

Sculpture tempted him all his life. I once asked him, 
when he was working on a Nude, why he didn’t do 
sculpture. 

“T am much too old,” he answered. 

But when Renoir once got an idea into his head. . . 


One day while I was with Renoir in the studio, he 
talked of the surprises one gets when the model first 
169 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


takes off her clothes. Some seem to be well formed but 
look like nothing at all, whereas others, quite hopeless at 
first sight, are veritable goddesses, once they are nude. 

Somebody knocked at the studio door. A model pre- 
sented herself—a regular cow! She stood there with 
her hands in the pockets of her apron. 

“T ‘do’ the market district, but business is rotten, with 
all those broads on the loose. And there’s too much 
competition with the married women. Somebody told 
me that posing was a good job, sol... .” 

“Well, we'll see, we'll see,” said the painter im- 
patiently, in order to get rid of her. 

When she had gone, Renoir remarked: “I’m not 
hard to please, but there are limits! .. .” 

Just then we heard a discreet cough from behind a 
screen at the end of the studio, and the potential model 
poked her head out. 

“What are you doing there?” cried Renoir. 

“Well, sir, you said you'd see, so I took off my 
clothes)) 00" 

I departed. The next day, on returning to the studio, 
I found the painter at his easel. 

“I’m waiting for the model; you know, the woman 
you saw yesterday.” 

“What! That horror!” 

“Horror? Why, she’s Venus herself!” 


It had been some years since Gabrielle had left the 
Renoirs’ service. Mamma Thingumbob had gone too, 
and had become a concierge. One day in Montmartre, 
] came upon her taking the air in front of the house. 

170 


MODELS AND MAIDS 


“Your place looks nice and respectable,” I said by 
way of complimenting her. 

“No, Monsieur Vollard, you’re mistaken. It isn’t re- 
spectable. The lady on the sixth floor is deceiving her 
husband, and a fine man he is too; the gentleman on the 
first is an old goat, and the tenant on the third has left 
his wife. . . . Yes, sir.” 

“And have you ever seen anything more of Ga- 
brielle?”’ 

“No, sir. Gabrielle is living in Athenes, a nice little 
town. And I hear she has a maid and a velvet coat. 
... Yes, sir.” 


171 


CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 
RENOIR AND HIS PATRONS 


NoTHING distressed Renoir more than selling his pic- 
tures. Not that his desire to keep them was beyond 
bounds, but he wanted to see them again, touch them 
up, sign them. . 

Sacha Guitry had come to take moving pictures of 
him, knowing the painter’s inability to refuse anything. 

“If I could only get you with a brush in your hand!” 
he said. 

Renoir just happened to have a picture to sign. He 
had it put on the easel and called for his colour-box. 
From the far end of the room I could see his brush mov- 
ing on the canvas. When the operator had stopped 
turning, Renoir put out his hand for little Claude to un- 
fasten the brush from his fingers. 

“But, papa, you didn’t sign the picture!” 

“T’ll do that another time.” 

“From the movements of your hand,’ I remarked, 
“one would have thought that you had signed it two 
or three times.” 

“No, I just added a little rose!” 


After Renoir had given his pictures the final touch, 
and the dealers believed them at last in their clutches, 
172 


RENOIR AND HIS PATRONS 


the amateur entered upon the scene. . . . Inasmuch as 
Renoir had the reputation for disliking to sell directly 
to the buyer, the said amateur, in order to get into the 
studio, would begin by begging for the portrait of his 
wife or daughter—much less frequently his little boy, 
because paintings of male children do not sell so readily. 

“Oh Monsieur Renoir!” he would say. “If you only 
knew how my wife has been saving on her wardrobe for 
more than three years to have her portrait in your new 
manner! She has just broken open her little bank and 
found three thousand francs! Of course, for that price, 
we don’t dare to hope for a portrait in oil! But a little 
pastel would make us so happy!” 

He would be perfectly well aware that with his 
paralyzed hands Renoir could no longer handle pastels, 
and that after having bargained for a drawing, the 
artist would take up canvas and brushes of his own 
accord. 

The affair once arranged, I need not add that the lady 
invariably arrived in full négligée! The nearer the 
nude, the higher the price. Not to mention the likeli- 
hood that she would come accompanied by her “‘little 
daughter’ (cases where the latter has been borrowed 
from a friend are not unknown), and a new campaign 
would begin to have the child painted along with her 
mother. 

Thus, while the amateurs besieged the painter, the 
dealers were far from his thoughts. They did not turn 
up very frequently, for they knew that the first con- 
dition to observe in order to make sure of nabbing some- 
thing by Renoir, was to leave him strictly alone. But 

173 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 
when the maids, to make things more convenient, hap- 
pened to leave the key in the door, thus passing on to 
the cook the responsibility of filtering the steady stream 
of visitors—the “amateurs” dropped in like grain into 
the mill. 

Finally, if the dealers had been lucky, and the dif- 
ferent lots were finished and signed, Renoir would say, 
rather with the air of giving a malediction: 

“Get along, now! Take them away!” 

And without even taking the trouble to look at the 
pictures, they always repeated the same phrase: “An- 
other time, Monsieur Renoir, make the price higher and 
give us more pictures!” 

“You don’t like it, eh, when | sell to the collectors?” 

“Well, we offer you a better price.” 

Then Renoir, who was never impressed by money, 
would retort: 

“Wait a bit, then; at the rate they are going now, 
the amateurs will soon be stuffed to the gills with 
them!” | 

But the amateur was never stuffed to the gills, be- 
cause a Renoir was to him nothing more than a bond 
in his safe-deposit vault... . If he was turned away 
empty-handed, he promptly sent another “amateur” to 
the attack, hired for the purpose. 

They used to come to the studio primed with all his 
ideas about politics, religion, literature . . . they even 
exaggerated them if necessary. There was one fellow 
who thought that by ranking La Dame de Monsoreau 
above the Iliad, he would appeal to Renoir’s passion for 
Dumas! In addition to his cargo of Renoiresque opin- 

174 


RENOIR AND HIS PATRONS 


ions, he thought he could maneuvre still more profit- 
ably by showing a profound knowledge of the ‘“Mas- 
ters’ different styles. So he brought a canvas with him 
from which he had carefully effaced the signature and 
the date: 

“Monsieur Renoir, here is a picture of yours un- 
signed! I found it at the Flea Market.1. The moment 
I saw it, I cried: “A Renoir! And I'll bet my last 
sou that it was painted in such-and-such a year!” 

After Renoir had confirmed the statement and 
had re-signed and re-dated the canvas, the amateur 
poured out his gratitude with just the proper show of 
emotion! 

“Just to think that I got hold of a Renoir that way! 
You permit me to say ‘Renoir’? One gets in the habit 
of saying a Titian, a Velasquez, a Watteau! ...” (A 
good collector must know the tastes of his victim; this 
one was not unaware that Titian, Velasquez, and Wat- 
teau were Renoir’s gods. He was also not ignorant of 
the fact that if he had said “Master” instead of 
“Renoir,” he would have made a very bad impression. ) 
“After finding this picture, I came straight to your 
house, but when I got to the door my courage failed me. 
Once I even came up as far as your studio. I was just 
about to ring the bell, but I didn’t quite dare... . 

1 Le Marché aux Puces, a ramshackle market held every Sunday 
in the vacant lots just outside of the Porte de Clignancourt, Paris. 
In addition to legitimate dealers in cheap clothes and household 
utensils, there are many booths reputed to be the clearing-houses 
of thieves for stolen goods. Sometimes pictures and objects of 


great value find their way into this market, and are sold for a 
song. (Trans. Note.) 


175 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


To-day I took my courage in both hands, saying to my- 
self: ‘Ill bet anything I’ll get thrown out.’ ” 

How could Renoir have put such a brave fellow out! 
And the amateur talked on, with tears in his voice, of 
how happy his wife would be if he could come home 
some day with another Renoir. (The signal for the 
portrait.) 

“Will you permit me to bring my wife with meP She 
simply hasn’t been able to sleep since she saw the last 
exhibition of your pictures at Durand-Ruel’s. ‘If I 
could only have my portrait done by Renoir!’ she keeps 
saying. I have told her many a time: ‘Perhaps 
Renoir won't like you.’ ”’ 

Disturbed to think that the poor lady could imagine 
that she might be distasteful to him, Renoir finally ac- 
cepted the commission with the hope that the punish- 
ment would not be too severe—in other words, that the 
model would not be too old and would have a complex- 
ion that did not resist the light. . . . Need I say that 
such fears were quite vain? The amateur brought him 
a professional model, the finest kind of a blonde, the 
blonde that Renoir so loved to paint. 

But these schemes were nothing to the astuteness of 
a Chinaman who wrote that his celestial happiness 
would be unbounded if he could obtain a mere line or 
two by the “Master” (Renoir could support “Master” 
better in writing than in conversation) for the modest 
sum of ... 

Renoir was reading the letter aloud. At this point, 
before turning the page, he said: “I'll wager, Vollard, 
that he will offer me something like three hundred 

176 





STUDIES 


a 





RENOIR AND HIS PATRONS 


francs. But it would be nice to have a picture in China, 
just the same.” He read on. 

The price suggested was five hundred pounds sterling. 
Renoir let him have a picture for which he had refused 
double that price. 

“That chap has a very pleasant face!” I said one 
day to Renoir, speaking of a man who had just left the 
studio. He had just brought the painter a very beau- 
tiful Louis XIV frame. “It is an heirloom,’ he had 
declared. “Won’t the portrait of my wife that you 
promised to do, look splendid in that!’ (A smaller 
canvas had been agreed upon, as it happened.) 

“Yes, Vollard, I am convinced more and more every. 
day that he is a second Choquet!” 

The following day, in an antique shop, the same 
“amateur” came in with the same frame, the heirloom. 

“T’m bringing back the frame that I took on trial,’ 
I heard him say to the dealer. 

Since Renoir was for ever confined to his chair by 
rheumatism, the amateur ran no risk that the painter 
would drop in to see him to judge the effect of the can- 
vas in the frame. But he did not count on another 
thing. Not long after, Renoir found the portrait that 
the “second Monsieur Choquet” had got away from 
him, listed in the catalogue of a public sale. 


177 


CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO 
PORTRAIT OF A GREAT COLLECTOR 


SIDE by side with the collectors who are always on the 
look-out for a good bargain—and apart from certain 
“eccentrics” like Choquet, de Bellio, and Caillebotte (to 
mention only those who are dead), who really loved the 
pictures they bought—there exists a species of collector 
who, in spite of his invincible indifference, even dis- 
taste, for the arts, possesses collections of pictures just 
as others have racing-stables. To this class of “grand 
amateurs’ belonged Monsieur Chauchard, who, anxious 
to make a fine impression to the very last sou of his 
millions, ordered the pictures which had cost him the 
most to be borne before the bier at his funeral. But 
this grand old man died before the work of Renoir had 
attained high enough prices to be admitted to his “gal- 
leries.”’ | 

Isaac de Camondo, however, shall have a special 
place in this history, not so much because he possessed 
several Renoirs (which he bought against his better 
judgment), but because of his desperate efforts to de- 
velop a taste for this kind of painting. 

About 1910 Count Isaac de Camondo came into my 
shop. I imagined that the eye of the celebrated col- 
lector had been caught by a Renoir Nude exhibited in 

178 


PORTRAIT OF A GREAT COLLECTOR 
the window. It developed, however, that he had come 
to see a Degas drawing. He examined it with a bored 
air, and, between yawns, asked me the price. While | 
was wrapping up the drawing, which he had finally de- 
cided to buy, I hazarded: 

“And the Nude by Renoir?’ I turned around the 
easel which held the canvas. Monsieur de Camondo 
stepped back a few paces. 

“If your Renoir were younger, perhaps he could be 
cured of that excess of colour, and learn how to draw; 
but when a painter is past sixty years of age and draws 
an arm like that, a thigh like this (with the point of his 


cane he indicated the parts of the canvas) . . . and just 
look at the colour of those cheeks! . . . And besides, 
do you know what Renoir lacks? .. . Tradition! You 


feel as if a man like that would not like the Louvre! 
Now Renouard, whom | met the other day at the mu- 
seum, studying a Holbein, is made of different stuff!” 

I happened at that time to have some drawings by the 
Renouard in question, especially a Camerier du Pape, 
which I showed to my client before bringing out some 
Degas drawings which he had asked to see. 

“Tl have some much more important Degas than 
those,’ quoth Monsieur de Camondo, regarding the 
Renouard attentively, and he began to yawn again. 
This time, it was not difficult to divine that Monsieur 
de Camonda was yawning to simulate indifference, yet 
at the same time I could not for the life of me under- 
stand why he spoke of his Degas when I was showing 
him a Renouard. 

However, I had visions of selling all my Renouards. 

179 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


And, reaching towards the racks, I said: “That is not 
the only one I have. I think you will agree with me 
that Renouard knows how to draw. . . .” 

The yawning stopped short, and the visage of 
Monsieur de Camondo was suddenly overcast by an ex- 
pression of discomfort. In spite of the signature, and in 
spite of the subject of the drawing, he had continued to 
mistake the Renouard for a Degas. 

In order to change the subject, I asked him if he 
had always liked Impressionism. 

“Certainly not. The old traditions of my family 
have made me _ a dyed-in-the-wool classicist from the 
cradle. Even though I am in modernism now up to my 
neck, I cannot repudiate my love for the works that our 
grandfathers have handed down to us, such as our 
great cathedrals . .. even the less celebrated of our 
churches, for that matter. Take Saint-Germain |’Aux- 
errois, for instance. How many times have I stopped 
in front of it, on my way to the Louvre! When my 
friend Frantz Jourdain used to take me to see his 
Samaritaine,? we would pass Saint-Germain on the way, 
and my feet would fairly take root in front of it. He 
had all he could do to get me to move on. 

“Although the very real relationship which exists be- 
tween the old and the new was for long a mystery to me, 
it was not fully revealed to me until Frantz Jourdain 
took me up on the roof of the Louvre, and my eye fell 

1 Monsieur de Camondo’s taste for French culture was such that 
he quite forgot his Turkish origin. (Author’s Note.) 

2 La Samaritaine is perhaps the most atrocious building in Paris— 
a department store in the most flamboyant style of nouveau art. 
Frantz Jourdain was the owner. (Trans. Note.) 


180 


PORTRAIT OF A GREAT COLLECTOR 
simultaneously on Saint-Germain |’Auxerrois and the 
Samaritaine. ... 

“But to return to Impressionism: My first revela- 
tion came several years ago, at the home of a princess, 

. a friend of mine. I was looking at a sunset over 
a pond from the windows of her Henri II chateau. | 
had taken Frantz Jourdan with me; for a long time | 
had promised to present him to an authentic princess. 
At his request, the first valet of my amiable hostess 
brought in a Louis XVI frame of the purest style, which 
Jourdain wished to hold with his own hands between 
the sashes of the window. By stepping back a few 
paces, the portion of the pond cut out by the frame, 
gave the effect of an Impressionist picture! Not long 
after, I had the opportunity of seeing some pictures by 
La Touche, which reminded me vividly of my framed 
glimpse of the pond... .” 

“La Touche?” I queried. 

“A great modern!” he pronounced. “I forget which 
critic said that. I came to Monet through La Touche, 
just as I began to like Saint-Saéns before understanding 
Wagner. ‘You cannot reach Mecca in one day,’ as 
the Turkish proverb goes. Once initiated into Impres- 
sionism, I no longer felt any desire to get out of it. But 
Impressionism must be paznting too; and there is no 
such thing as painting without drawing!” 

And he swore that he would never have a Renoir in 
his collection. But Monsieur de Camondo forgot that 
there is a proverb—not of Turkish origin—which de- 
clares that it is unwise to say: ‘Fountain, I shall drink 


not of thy water.” 
18] 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


The day came when the art of Renoir began to trouble 
him. It was no longer a question of determining 
whether Renoir did or did not know how to draw, but 
whether a collection of Impressionist art could be 
complete without at least one Renoir. This much 
justice must be done to Camondo: he was capable, if 
worst came to worst, of sacrificing his personal tastes 
when he realized that certain names were necessary to 
a great collection. 

“T shall end up by buying some samples of the wildest 
stuff that Renoir has done,’ he declared one day to an 
intimate friend. “If I can keep that down, I shall be 
able to swallow anything!” 

The “wild” Renoirs were purchased.2 However, 
Monsieur de Camondo could not always stomach their 
excess of colour and their lack of drawing. . . . 

“How about trying another dish of Renoir?” I sug- 
gested one day. 

“Perhaps. But none of your 1900’s, nor your 1896's 
either,’ he protested. 

I suggested a magnificent ’89, the Portrait of Madame 
de Bonnieres. 

“T don’t want any of your ’89’s either, for that is in 
the middle of the ‘dry’ period. A famous ‘advanced’ 
critic once remarked: “Those Renoirs are like fruit 
that will never ripen.’ But I have decided to have some 
Renoirs; so find me some good ’70’s, even ’65’s—women, 
of course. Watch out for the hands! None of those 
kitchen-wench hands of his. ... Be very careful of 

3 The Renoirs in the Camondo collection in the Louvre. 


182 


REECE MEE MRL Mg 


GIRL WITH A TAMBOURINE—Drawing 


Jean Renoir Collection, Marlotte 











PORTRAIT OF A GREAT COLLECTOR 


the style of dress, too, and take care not to select 
any with that morbid note. I don’t need to warn you, 
do I, that the Renoirs must not be too ‘Renoir’? Keep 
in mind always that the pictures will go to the Louvre 
some day. . . . I won’t object if you go back even as 
far as 1800! What I want above all is drawing!” 

“T know an 1858, extraordinarily finished—in fact, the 
first picture that Renoir ever painted!” 

“A woman pP” 

“No, a still-life.” 

“No still-lifes! I have just refused a Fish by Manet. 

. There’s no more space in my dining-room. Do 
you happen to know off-hand if there still exists a Nude 
of a grande dame, in his earlier manner? I know his 
Faubourg ladies are not exactly . Olive nil 

“Not exactly appetizing,” I was Ehout to “fli when 
Monsieur de Camondo continued: 

“Not very easy to meet! I have heard it said, 
though, that Renoir was received socially by a relative 
of Rothschild Did you have something to say 
to mer” 

I asked if I could offer to show him the work of some 
of the younger men. 

“T see your game!” Camondo maka “And you're 
not the only one either! All you dealers seem to have 
passed the word around among yourselves. You all 
say: ‘If you prefer the early work of the great paint- 
ers, why don’t you buy the work of some of the men 
who are still young?’ You ought to know by this 
time that I won’t have any works which are still dis- 

183 





RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 
puted in my galleries. Oh, I know you're going to say 
‘What about Cézanne’s House of the Hanged? Well, 
yes, in that case I did buy a picture which had not yet 
been universally accepted. But I am protected; I have 
an autographed letter from Claude Monet, who gives 
me his word of honour that that picture is destined to 
become famous. If you come to see me some day, | 
will show you the letter. I keep it in a little pocket 
nailed to the back of the picture, for the edification of 
those malicious people who would like to have the laugh 
on me because of my House of the Hanged.” 

With this security (as well as the prices they were 
bringing) Count Camondo felt that he was running no 
risk in buying Cézanne, and later acquired several 
others. He would have bought a good many more, but 
Cézanne painted too many still-lifes, which, as we have 
already seen, Camondo considered made specially to 
hang in a dining-room. And his dining-room was full 
of still-lifes. 

Monsieur de Camondo was getting ready to depart; 
he turned for a last word: 

“T would like to do something for your younger men 
just the same. They all adore Renoir, don’t they? 
Well, you are at liberty to say that I asked you to show 
me some Renoirs.” 

“I have already given it out that you have taken a 
Degas,” I answered indiscreetly. 

“Ah! you must never make my purchases public 
without my permission! Don’t you realize that the 
whole world has its eyes fixed on me, and that each 
time I buy a painting, the reputation of the painter 

184 


PORTRAIT OF A GREAT COLLECTOR 


goes up, and makes later acquisitions more difficult? 
The dealers are so Jewish these days! 

“But if you promise to say nothing about what I buy, 
and also not to try to get the better of me, | will 
introduce you to some of my friends. For instance, to 
begin with, I will call over those two men whom you 
see going by there across the street. They never buy 
pictures; but it’s something to have a baron and a 
marquis seen in your shop. .. .” 

The two persons entered. 

Camondo: Things not going very well, Marquis? 
You lookwas if) asi; . 

The Marquis: lve just had a terrible blow! My 
son Jacques inherited over a million francs from his 
mother last year. Would you believe it, my banker 
has just informed me that there are only three francs 
and eighty-five centimes left in his account! And | 
was so proud of him too! On his eighteenth birthday 
I gave him a little farm to keep him in contact with the 
practical side of life. Well, sir, when fodder was high 
the cows nearly starved, I can tell you! 

Camondo: If he had bought Impressionism instead 
of sowing his wild oats, he would have tripled his mil- 
lion in three years! 

The Marquis: You know how interested I am in 
that kind of painting; you have never seen me miss an 
exhibition at Durand-Ruel’s; but, frankly, I would 
rather see a crowd of harlots get the money than people 
like Renoir, Pissarro, and Sisley. . . . Have you ever 
really looked at aman who buys Impressionism? Your 
friend Florent, for instance. Why, he’s a nervous wreck 

185 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 

from the rumour that Sisleys might weaken. So the 
doctor has ordered him to sell his collection. And 
Domergue, too, looks positively haggard when he is 
talking about the unhoped-for rise in Manets. My boy 
Jacques has gone through a million instead of making 
three. . . . Well, perhaps, but, he is just as gay as he 
ever was. He still throws his arms around my neck and 
says: “Good old dad, I love you.” His eyes are still 
clear and there’s not a line of worry on his forehead. 

Someone had entered the shop. It was Viscount 
Jumelle. I recognized him from a caricature I had 
seen by Sem. He shook hands with the baron. 

“Accept my compliments, Philippe, on your Meat 
Pie at the Epatant Exhibition. It looks good enough 
to eat!” 

The Baron (modestly): Before painting a stroke, I 
went to study Bonnat’s Portrait of Coignet. What a 
miracle it is to have created that harmony of red and 
black; the vermilion is enchanting and the bitumens 
amazingly rich. How marvelously the body is felt 
under it all! 

The Viscount: I am very keen about Bonnat’s 
drawing, and his colour too, although I feel that the 
Master has sacrificed himself a little too much to Im- 
pressionism in his latest works.® 

The Viscount’s remark rather astonished me, for 
he had bought a Cézanne at the Theodore Duret 
sale, ten years before. When I mentioned it, he an- 
swered: “It was not I, it was the Viscountess.” 

t- See Appendix I, B. 


5 See Appendix I, C, 
186 


PORTRAIT OF A GREAT COLLECTOR 


“But how do you like that canvas of Cézanne’s?” | 
asked. 

“| haven’t seen it,” he replied. “It has always hung 
in the Viscountess’ bedroom.” 


Monsieur de Camondo was decidedly a man of his 
word. He arrived at my shop one day, bringing Mon- 
sieur B., a “serious” collector. The two amateurs 
happened to find two of their confréres there: King 
Milan of Serbia, an eclectic (he went from Bouguereau 
to Van Gogh) and M. Sarlin, a “specialist” in the 1830's 
(the high-class 1830’s). Someone had informed Sarlin 
(quite mistakenly) that he had seen a Daubigny in my - 
shop—a Daubigny “with ducks.” 

Monsieur de Camondo (to Monsieur Sarlin): They 
were talking at the club of the new Corot you have 
bought. A Corot with water, of course? 

Monsieur Sarlin (a little annoyed): No, a Corot 
without water. 

Camondo and Monsieur B. (in unison): A Corot 
without water! 

Monsieur Sarlin: No, there is no water, but the 
tone is magnificent. 

Vollard; Good colour covers a multitude of sins. 

Camondo: You have to watch out for colour! Once 
you have put your foot init... 

King Milan was looking with interest at a pair of 
field-glasses slung from Monsieur B.’s shoulders by a 
strap. 

“Have you been to the races?” his Majesty inquired. 
“You haven't any good tips, have your” 

187 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 

“These glasses,’ replied Monsieur B., a_ little 
haughtily, “are for examining the pictures that are 
submitted to me!” 

King Milan had nothing further to say to such an un- 
expected explanation. 

“T will show you,’ continued Monsieur B. “By 
looking at the canvas through the large end of the glasses 
—thereby reducing it—I can judge the drawing better. 
I don’t buy pictures with my ears, you know. I’m 
not that kind. . . . One must always think of the sale 
later on.” | 

“You are thinking of selling?’ inquired Monsieur de 
Camondo. 

“That will depend on the kind of marriage my 
daughter makes! It’s not that we won't have enough to 
give her a dowry, even if she should marry a duke, or a 
prince—indeed, the son of a king. [At this point a 
slight grimace imperceptibly altered the placid features 
of King Milan.] But in the latter case, my Renoirs, 
my Meissoniers, my Besnards, my Rembrandts would 
no longer be of any use tome. With a royal son-in-law, 
can you see me keeping up a picture gallery to attract 
people to my house!” 

With a curiosity which somewhat surprised me, es- 
pecially after the wry face that I had just observed, 
King Milan inquired discreetly the age of the daughter. 

“Oh!” exclaimed Monsieur B. ‘The little one hasn’t 
started teething yet! So you see I haven't finished 
collecting!’ 


188 


CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 


RENOIR PAINTS MY PORTRAIT 
(1915) 


I HAD already posed several times for Renoir. He had 
made one lithograph of me, and three studies in oil, 
one of which was carried rather far. It showed me with 
my elbows on a table, holding in one hand a statuette 
by Maillol (1908). | 

After that, I felt I had had my due. But at that 
time Renoir had not yet painted the portrait of Bern- 
stein (1910), a canvas in a very extraordinary harmony 
of blue. 

From that moment on, my greatest desire was to 
have a portrait of myself in a similar harmony. Renoir 
agreed, but he made one condition. “You must have 
a suit of the kind of blue I like,” he said; “you know 
what it is, Vollard, that metallic blue with silver lights.” 

So I devoted myself to blue; but every time I ordered 
a new blue suit, Renoir would say: “That is not right 
yet.” 

In 1915 I had gone to spend a few days at Les 
Collettes. 1 had forgotten all about the portrait. As 
I was crossing the orchard of orange-trees, which ex- 
tends from the road to the house, I heard someone 
call my name. 

It was Renoir coming back from the fields, in an arm- 

189 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


chair borne by “Big Louise” and Baptistin, the gardener. 
The model was walking ahead, carrying the canvas. 

The two porters stopped. “Don’t walk so fast, 
Madeleine,” Renoir called to the model. “I want to 
look at my picture.” Then, turning tome: “I haven't 
been able to go out for two weeks; I certainly needed 
a change of scene. It would have taken only a few 
strokes to finish that picture; then I counted on starting 
something with Madeleine for a model; but they forgot 
to bring my sunshade. What a magician the sun is! 

“One day when I was with Lauth in Algeria, we sud- 
denly saw a fabulous personage advancing towards us, 
mounted on a donkey. As he drew nearer, he proved 
to be nothing but a beggar, but in the sun his tatters 
glistened like precious stones.” 

The model stood the picture up against a tree. 

“Not bad, is it?” Renoir said to me with a slight 
wink. ‘The trouble is that indoors it will be all black, 
but after I’ve had a little skirmish with it in the studio, 
you Il see how brilliant it will be!” 

When we had arrived at the studio, he said: “Vol- 
lard, will you call my “doctoress’ ?” 

“What?” I asked. 

“T absolutely cannot get used to the word ‘nurse’! 
What a nice hat you have got on! ...I1 must do a 
picture of you. Sit down in that chair. You are in 
quite a peculiar light; but a good painter should be able 
to accommodate himself to any light! What are you 
going to do with your hands? Here, take Claude’s card- 
board tiger, or the cat sleeping by the fire-place, if you 
prefer.” 

190 





THe APPLE VENDOR (1889) 


Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pa. 





RENOIR PAINTS MY PORTRAIT 


I chose the cat, and did my best to assure myself of 
the good graces of the beast. Luck was with me, for 
after a few peaceful purrs, he went to sleep on my 
knees. 

The “doctoress’” prepared the palette. Renoir told 
her what colours he wanted, and she pressed the tubes. 
When the palette was set, and the nurse was about to 
slip the brush between his fingers, he exclaimed: “But 
you ve forgotten my ‘thumb’!”? 

I was afraid there would be no portrait that day, but 
the nurse found the “thumb” in the pocket of her apron. 

Renoir always attacked his canvas without the slight- 
est apparent plan. Patches would appear first, then 
more patches, then, suddenly, a few strokes of the 
brush, and the subject “came out.” Even with his 
stiffened fingers, he could do a head in one sitting as 
easily as when he was young. ? 

I could not take my eyes off his hand. ‘You see, 
Vollard?” he said. “One doesn’t need hands to paint. 
They’re quite superfluous.” 

Renoir’s methods were exactly contrary to those of 
Cézanne, who never allowed his sitters to talk or move 
about. In fact Renoir had been known to dismiss a 
model if she were not animated enough. So we began 
to talk at once. Of a sudden we heard singing outside 
in the street: 


“Liberty, dear Liberty, 
Fight with thy defenders!” 


1A band of rolled cloth which he habitually wore on his thumb, 
2The portrait of Wagner was painted in twenty-five minutes. 
See pages 104-105. 
19] 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


Renoir: Do you hear that? They’re always howl- 
ing about liberty and putting it on monuments and 
writing about it in books. What a horror they have 
of it in the bottom of their hearts! One day I asked a 
friend to tell me frankly what he disliked about my 
work. He replied, “You take too many liberties. . . .” 

Once I read in a paper how the United ® Socialists, at 
one of their conventions, expelled a member in spite 
of his outraged protests. At first I thought it was some 
poor devil who was being robbed of his daily bread; 
but then I learned that it was a rich socialist, and that 
he had been aiding the party out of his own pocket! 
What do you think of that? They gave him his liberty, 
and the poor man was lost when he found he had 
nobody to serve! 

You can’t have freedom except under a tyrant! 
The Pope took it as a matter of course that Raphael 
should paint the story of Psyche in the Vatican; but if 
he were living now, do you think the State would let 
him paint the story of the Virgin? * Just the other 
day I opened the Fables of La Fontaine which Claude 
had brought back from school: in the story of “The 
Little Fish Will Grow Up,” the line “If God gives him 
life’ has been changed to “If he has been given life.” 
... It’s really distressing! | see Liberty written every- 
where, but underneath they put: “Lay instruction is 

3It is difficult to tell exactly what “united” means. The title 
implies unity of doctrine, but there are majorities and minorities 
within the party none the less. (Author’s Note.) 

4It is to be remembered here, and in the ensuing discussion, that 


the French State is anticlerical. (Trans. Note.) 
192 


RENOIR PAINTS MY PORTRAIT 


compulsory.” . . . In the old days, when there was no 
such thing as Liberty, there was no compulsory edu- 
cation. And they knew how to speak French, too... 
and write it! 

(Renoir burst out laughing. ) 

The Impressionist School itself is a good example of 
the universal distaste for liberty. No sooner had we 
laid down the rules for our first exhibitions, and pro- 
claimed that everyone was to paint just as he wanted, 
than we promptly forbade anyone to exhibit in the 
official Salon! 


There was a knock at the door, and a physician from 
Paris entered. He was travelling in the Midi and had 
come to pay a call on Renoir. 

“A funny thing has just happened,” he said. “One 
of my patients just declared that he is not going to 
permit himself to be inoculated with salvarsan as long 
as the war lasts. Can you guess why? Because it is a 
German discovery!” 

“Do you believe in all these modern remedies?” asked 
Renoir. 

“Do I believe in them! Well, if salvarsan had been 
discovered in the time of Francis I, he would not have 
died so young as he did.” 

“That reminds me of a book of Geuatey s about the 
Louvre,’ said the painter. “The way it treated poor 
King Francis!—‘The old satyr,’ ‘the conceited old 
rascal.’ . . . These republicans make me laugh. They 
don’t think a king has any right to sleep with a woman!” 

193 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


The doctor seemed to feel that Renoir was poking 
fun at the government, and with an air of superiority 
he declared: 

“T’m not in favour of the Church.” 

“At Pierre’s first communion,” continued Renoir, “I 
saw a woman who had just drunk the wine of the Lord; 
as she returned to her place, her hat was all askew 
and she stumbled around among the chairs; she had lost 
all control of herself. I never understood until then the 
power the priests have, when they can put people in such 
a state. The freemasons, the Protestants, the whole 
crowd, in fact, would give anything to get the women 
out of the clutches of the clergy, but they haven't the 
influence; that’s what makes them so furious. I like 
things to be open and above-board. The clergy wear a 
definite costume; when you see them coming, you can 
take to your heels. But your damned socialists dress 
just like everyone else—they get hold of you before you 
know what’s coming, and then they bore you to death!” 

The door of the studio had opened, and Madame 
Renoir entered, a piece of blue paper in her hand. 

“Here’s a telegram from Rodin,’ she announced. 
“He is at Cannes. He is going to take luncheon with 
us to-day. You have a portrait of him to do for the 
Bernheim book, you know. He says that he will arrive 
about noon, and that he has very little time to spare. 
I have told Baptistin to get the car ready; I am going 
over to Nice to get a chicken, and some pdté, and a 
lobster. I’ll be back in an hour.” 

Then turning to me, she added: “Renoir can say 
what he likes, but an automobile is a great convenience.” 

194 


RENOIR PAINTS MY PORTRAIT 


The doctor rose to go. “I’m going to Nice, and | 
would like to take advantage of the motor if I may.” 

Madame Renoir (to her husband): A letter came 
from the “Triennial” which I almost forgot to give you. 
They probably want you to send something to their 
exhibition.°® 

We were alone again. 

Renoir; 1 suppose you agree with my wife. But 
just think a minute; if we knew nothing about motor 
cars or railroads, or telegrams, Rodin would have come 
by the diligence, we would have been notified a month 
ahead of time, the chicken would have been fattening 
in the poultry yard, the paté made here; and it would 
have been a lot better than the tinned stuff my wife 
will bring back from Nice! Furthermore, I would never 
have found boric acid in my chicken, as | did the other 
day! Then, too, I wouldn’t be always bothered by a 
swarm of people coming in to see me. If we lived in 
the good old times, without any railroads, tramways or 
autos, they would all have stayed at home. 

Madame L. comes from Nice to our house on the 
tram in forty minutes. And she never misses her car 
either, the old hen! (Then imitating Madame. L.’s 
nasal voice:) ‘When I left Paris, my husband made 
me swear that I would come to see you often.” Bah! 
the old fool! And she has a nerve! She’s a good 
Protestant, so she is always abusing the pomp of 
Catholic ceremonies. You know that I’m no sectarian, 
Vollard, but when I find myself with a Protestant, I 
become the most violent Catholic! I wish you could 


5 See Appendix I, D. 
195 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


have heard Madame L. ... “The Protestant religion 
has the virtue of being a simple religion at least.” A 
simple religion! She thinks so, does she, the old idiot! 

“Madame,” I said to her, “I dare say you mean a 
sombre religion. You can’t say that savages are sim- 
ple. Just look at the brilliant colours they love to 
wear!” 

After boring me to death with her “simple” religion, 
what does she do but start in to talk about music, 
especially the compositions of her friend B.? I can't 
help it if I don’t like literary music. Gallimard once 
took me to see one of B’s operas. He came to see me 
next day when I was painting a nude. 

“How did you like the opera last night?” he said. 

“Well,” I replied, “it doesn’t amuse me half as much 
as painting a behind!” 


Renoir continued: Poor old Rheims cathedral! 
Have you seen the pictures of the decapitated angels in 
the papers? What a pity! But the worst of it is that 
after the war they'll go and rebuild it. Just look at the 
way they have arranged the facade of the church at 
Vezelay! That’s enough. 

In a row of Gothic columns, for instance, the motif of 
which is a cabbage-leaf, I defy you to find a single 
leaf exactly opposite the other, or carved in the same 
way. The same thing applies to the columns them- 
selves: they are never squarely opposite each other, 
nor exactly alike. Not one of the modern architects, 
beginning with Viollet le Duc, has grasped the fact 
that the very spirit of Gothic is irregularity. Instead, 

196 


RENOIR PAINTS MY PORTRAIT 


they've decided that the early architects didn’t know 
what they were about. I once remarked, in the presence 
of several architects, that the Parthenon was irregularity 
itself. I thought they would die laughing. It was a 
guess on my part, but I| felt that it must be so. 
I found out later that I was right. No architect 
will ever admit that the regularity must be in the eye, 
and not in the object itself. There is a new church at 
Rome called Saint Paul’s, which is atrocious because 
the columns were turned out on a lathe. When you 
look at the columns of the Parthenon, you are amazed 
by their regularity. But look closer, and you realize 
that they’re all different. The same _ irregularity 
is to be found in all the primitives, even in China and 
Japan. It is the professors who have invented the 
modern compass regularity. 

Have you read the article by Pelletan about Rheims 
cathedralr He proposes to have the German prisoners 
build a new one alongside the old! Deep down in his 
heart the good man is really persuaded that it would 
be more beautiful than the original! 

I recall two of the prophets on one of the portals 
of the Rheims cathedral. There is a leaf motif above 
one of them; what astonishing fantasy that is! And 
there are two little heads on either side of the other 
prophet ..: such grace! ... 

The richness of those doors is unbelievable! Think 
of making such heavy material as light as lace! What 
an achievement to have given such a ponderous mass 
so much richness and at the same time such delicacy! 
... Tell all your Pelletans that with all the millions 

197 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 
in the world they can’t build anything to approach 
it, and they will reply in chorus: “What about 
Progress?” 

Three figures stand out among all the masterpieces 
of Rheims: Christian Religion, the Queen of Saba, and 
the Smiling Angel. It is beauty that maddens you! 

When you see such things as that, you realize how 
depressing and, above all, how futile modern sculpture 
is! Look at those horses on the Grand Palais, each 
pulling in a different direction! Now if the Germans 
would only drop their bombs on that! No such luck! 

They keep publishing those pastels by La Tour in the 
papers along with the sculpture of Rheims. As soon 
as a picture has suffered at the hands of the Boches, 
they at once make it out to be a masterpiece. 

Vollard: But isn’t La Tour a great painter? 

Renoir: Well, perhaps... . 

V.: About on a par with Nattier, for instance? 

R.: Oh, better than that. ... But I can’t under- 
stand a painter who doesn’t like to paint hands! 


I was looking at a canvas propped up on a chair. 
It had several small subjects painted side by side: 
some figs, a small fine head, a little uncompleted nude. 

R.: I started the nude with a model that Madame 
Frey had sent to me. “I can guarantee,’ she wrote, 
“that this young girl has a good moral character.” 

But when she had undressed, I could easily have 
dispensed with her moral character if her breasts had 
only been firmer! I kept that canvas for the little 
girl’s head rather than for the figs or the nude. The 

198 





NUDE 





RENOIR PAINTS MY PORTRAIT 


model was a foreign woman of whom I made a large 
portrait later. 

In the sketch I caught that cruel and yet gentle air 
which I was never able to get so well in the finished 
picture. There is an amusing story about that. The 
woman’s husband kept repeating: “I vant you to make 
my vife qvite indimate!” 

I painted the dress almost up as far as the neck. 
He repeated: “Still more indimate. .. .” 

So I added a little collar. 

“But, Monsieur Renoir,’ he protested, “I dell you 
indimate, very indimate! I vant to see at least one of 
the breasts!” 


“I’ve run out of oil. Look in the little bottle in the 
corner of my box, Vollard.” 

“T can’t keep that bottle full. I’m always afraid my 
pictures will be too thin! What a perpetual problem it 
is to paint rich and ‘fat’ not thin like Ingres! Time 
has helped him out, but when he had just finished his 
pictures, they were very disagreeable. They stuck into 
your eyes like steel blades! 

V.: Did you know Ingres? 

R.: When I was about twelve or thirteen years old, 
my employer, the potter, sent me to the National 
Library one day to trace a portrait of Shakespeare which 
was to be painted on a plate. In looking about for a 
seat, | came to a corner of the room where several gentle- 
men were gathered, among them the architect who de- 
signed the library. I noticed in the group a short man 
with impatient gestures who was busy doing a portrait of 

199 





RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


the architect. It was Ingres. He had a block of paper 
in his hand, and he would make a sketch, throw it away, 
begin another. Then all at once he made a drawing as 
perfect as if he had worked on it for a week. 

Ingres must have appeared very tall when he was 
seated, but when he stood up, his knees seemed right 
next to his feet. 

To return to his pictures, I don’t know anything so 
awful as his G:dipus and the Sphinx. It has one good 
bit, however, a beautifully painted ear. His Napoleon 
seated on the throne is exceedingly beautiful too. What 
majesty it has! But Ingres’ masterpiece is Madame de 
Senones: the colour is superb. . . . It is painted like a 
Titian. You must go to Nantes to see it. It’s not like 
so many of the Ingres which look well in a photograph; 
you really have to see the original to appreciate it. 

I like the Martyrdom of Saint Sympborien much less. 
There are very beautiful things about it, but a lot of 
sham also. Ingres has been tremendously ridiculed on 
account of paintings like that and the Thetis Supplicat- 
ing Jupiter. But it isn’t fair simply to say of a painter 
that he is absurd in this picture and brilliant in that; 
you ought to find out the reason why in each case. 

It is a curious thing that when Ingres is carried away 
by his passion, he seems to run to imbecility. Look 
at the Francesca da Rimini; he tried to express so much 
passion in the attitude of the young man, that he made 
the neck twice as long as it should be; and Lord knows 
he knew how to draw a neck! Then the neck of 
Madame Riviere, in the Louvre, is another example! 

200 


RENOIR PAINTS MY PORTRAIT 
And the neck of the woman in Roger and Angélique 
. . . People usually think she has a goitre! That is 
because Ingres, in making her bend her head back so 
far to show pain, threw the muscles of the neck out of 
position. And yet people will tell you that he painted 
without passion. 

I think I said that the Madame de Senones was his 
masterpiece. But I had forgotten about La Source. 
It is a superb thing. There are budding little breasts 
for you, and a lovely torso . . . and feet and a perfectly 
empty face! 

V.: And the portrait of Bertin? 

R.: Yes, it’s magnificent, but I wouldn’t take ten 
Bertins for one Madame de Senones. Compared to 
Madame de Senones, the other is so much confectionery. 

V.: Guillemet once asked Corot what he thought of 
Ingres. Corot answered: “Lots of talent, but he got 
into a deplorable rut; he thought that life was to be 
found in outlines, but the truth is that outlines always 
elude the eye.” 

R.: Did you hear that idiot Z. the other day trying 
to compare Delacroix and Ingres, in order to make 
people think that he knew something about art? 

V.: Guillemet told me also what Delacroix said one 
day, while he was walking with Chasseriau in the Ingres 
room at the Hotel de Ville where he was then doing 
his own decorations: “It’s good, very good. Of course 
Ingres has his limitations; Lord, so have I. My work is 
full of faults too, Heaven knows. When we are both 
dead, I suppose we’ll stay in Purgatory a while for those 

201 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


faults. But if you were to give Ingres the job of doing 
my painting, and me his—well, I’ll wager that I would 
come out ahead!” 

But Delacroix is really more to your taste, is he not, 
Monsieur Renoir? 

R.: By nature, of course, I have a preference for 
Delacroix. There isn’t a finer picture in the world than 
the Algerian Women. How really Oriental those women 
are the one who has a little rose in her hair, for 
instance! And the gait of the Negress is absolutely 
right. You can fairly smell the incense; it takes me 
back at once to Algeria. . . . But that is no reason for 
my not liking Ingres. 





(Renoir had finished working for the day. He had 
half opened a newspaper which he found beside him, 
but he threw it down again angrily.) 

R.: Oh, Lord, there they go again with their sports! 
To-day it’s tennis... . 

I haven’t anything against tennis, you understand, 
but I was watching some people playing the other day, 
and they looked so silly and pretentious! In my day, 
we played battledore and shuttlecock, and if there was 
anybody who played tennis it wasn’t considered any- 
thing extraordinary. And one managed quite well with 
a three-franc racket. The other day C.’s son had the 
gall to ask his father for seventy-five francs to buy a 
racket with! 

The best game of all is “corks.” You have to squat 
down all the time, and that squeezes your liver and 

202 


RENOIR PAINTS MY PORTRAIT 


expels the poisons. But who would think of playing 
corks nowadays? They’ve even got young girls playing 
modern games too... . 

The other day I was doing a portrait of a girl of ten. 
I tried to interest her in the story of the little hunchback 
who turned into a prince charming and married the 
daughter of the king... . 

“Tt isn’t true,” she said. ‘What good is it, if it isn’t 
truer” 

“Well, what do you read, then?” 

“Instructive things, of course. Tbe Funeral Prayers 
of Bossuet and The Art of Poetry by Boileau .. .” 


By the way, Vollard, hand me that paper again; it 
seems to me that there was an article devoted to Art, 
with a big A, just above the one on tennis. 

But Renoir had hardly laid eyes on it when he cried: 

“Really, that’s too much! Here they’ve got the same 
man who writes about run-away horses to do the articles 
on art! And yet you'd be considered a great fool if 
you tried to tell them that art is an indefinable thing, 
and that it would cease to be art if it could be defined.” 

Renoir had thrown the paper aside once more. He 
had not mentioned the author of the article, and without 
doubt he had not troubled to look at it. But I caught 
the paper just in time, for it had fallen into the fire-place 
and had started to burn. I saw that the article was 
signed “Henri Bergson.” But the name meant nothing 
to Renoir. i 

Vollard: WHere’s something that will please you. I 

203 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 
see an advertisement here for a new book by Anatole 
France. 
Renoir: No, he has no feeling for simple sentiment. 


We heard the sound of a motor-car approaching. It 
was Madame Renoir coming back from Nice. At the 
same moment the “doctoress” came in to announce that 
it was past noon. She arranged the brushes and closed 
the colour-box. 

Baptistin and Big Louise, carrying the Sedan chair, 
followed the nurse. While he was being lifted in, 
Renoir said to me: “I must get a good likeness of 
Rodin; I have already done some drawings of him. 
But Rodin has a rather curious head—a combination 
of Jupiter and an office manager. 

“Louise,” he continued, turning to the maid, “don’t 
forget to remind me about that pipe-manufacturer who 
said he would come in again. There’s another man who 
says he can’t live without some of my pictures! I said 
to that friend of his whom he always brings along 
when he comes to see me: ‘Make him understand that 
I don’t like to sell my pictures,’ and the fellow replied: 
‘But, Monsieur Renoir, he is such a good man!’ 

“T loathe ‘good’ people. . . . I’d laugh if my pictures 
started to go down in price. The consternation among 
the Renoir speculators would be magnificent. I can 
just hear the pipe-maker wailing: “That scoundrelly 
Renoir! Think of all the brier-root I could have bought 
with the money I spent on his pictures!’ ” 


204 


CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 
LUNCHEON WITH RODIN 


As we were leaving the studio, we heard the sound of 
a motor-horn, and Rodin drove up, in high good humour. 

Renoir: You haven’t been able to give up your 
automobile either, have your I am always complaining 
about mine, but I am very glad to have it when I want 
to go over to Nice. 

Rodin: It belongs to one of my admirers, the 
Countess of X. 

Renoir: A most remarkable woman, isn’t she? 

Rodin: Her heart and mind are one and the same. 
I must tell you her latest bon mot. The Countess was 
in the studio while I was having my hair trimmed. 
We were talking about the importance of proceed- 
ing with the utmost care in making restorations in 
cathedrals meddling with any national property in 
fact, when a gentleman delegated by some of my friends 
came to tell me that the State was going to accept the 
donation of my works. 

“Jules,” the Countess exclaimed to the barber, “‘be 
careful you don’t cut off too much; the Master is about 
to become national property!” 





(Madame was showing Rodin some photographs of 
Jean and Claude as little children.) 
205 : 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 

Rodin: “What handsome children, Madame! What 
did you feed them on?” | 

Madame Renoir: My own milk, of course! 

Rodin: If you nursed them yourself, what happened 
to your social duties? 

Madame Renoir could hardly keep from laugh- 
ing. “We can sit down at the table now,” she said, 
changing the subject. “You are going to have some 
olives grown on our own place, Monsieur Rodin.” 

“The Greeks lived on these!’ said Rodin, taking an 
olive between his thumb and forefinger. “All that 
they needed was a piece of black bread, some goat’s 
milk, and water from a near-by stream! How happy 
the Greeks were in their poverty, and what wonders 
they left us! The Parthenon, for instance... . I 
believe I have discovered the real inspiration of their 
masterpieces. The secret of the Greeks lay in their 
love of Nature! 

“Nature! On my _ knees before Nature I have 
always sculptured my finest pieces. People have often 
reproached me for not putting a head on my Homme 
qui marche. Does one walk with one’s headp”’ 


Renoir: Have you seen the Russian Ballet? 

Rodin: The Russians are wonderful dancers. I got 
one of them to pose on top of a column—one leg bent 
back and arms stretched upward. I was trying to make 
a genie rising into flight. But that day my mind was 
somewhere else; I was dreaming of the Greeks. And 
presently I began to fall asleep with the lump of clay 
in my hands. Suddenly I woke up; my model had 

206 





PORTRAIT OF COLONNA ROMANO (1913) 


Luxembourg Museum, Parts. 





LUNCHEON WITH RODIN 


simply quit his pose; that was all. Oh, for the time 
when the artist had some rights of his own! Somebody 
once told me a story about an ancient sculptor who was 
doing an Actzon attacked by hounds, so he loosed a 
hungry pack of dogs on his model. But if I had done 
half of that to my Russian, there would have been a 
terrible uproar. 

Renoir: Tell us about the Pope. How did you like 
hime Did he pose well? 

Rodin (shaking his head): The Pope + doesn’t know 
anything about art. I wanted, for instance, to work 
on the ear, but it was impossible to see anything of it. 
I tried moving around, but as I moved, he would turn 
too. A farcry from Francis I, who stooped to pick up 
the brush that had fallen from Titian’s hand. 

(Rodin was looking at a Nude on the opposite wall.) 

Renoir, | understand why you make the right arm of 
that woman larger than the left; the mght arm is the 
active one. 

Vollard: Will you allow me to visit your hermi- 
tage at Meudon some day and your cell at the Hotel 
Biron? 

Rodin: With pleasure.2 People seem to know every 
detail of my artistic life. And Heaven knows | try to 
avoid publicity! 

V.: They say that in spite of all your genius you 
are not afraid to handle a hammer and chisel the way 
the ancient stone-cutters did! 

Rodin (running his fingers through his beard): The 

1 Benedict XV. 

2See Appendix I, E. 

207 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 
dream of the sculptor is to attack the stone or the marble 
always with his own hands. 

V.: They also say that... 

Rodin (good-naturedly): Well, what else do they 
say? 

V.: That the Institute has made advances in 
vain 

Rodin (violently): The devil! Why don’t they 
want me to be a member of the Institute? 

V.: Your friends, Master, love you with such a 
jealous love... . 

Rodin: Well, I wish they loved me less and would 
not keep me from being immortalized. That's the same 
crowd that wanted to keep the subscription for the 
Balzac commission among themselves. “Master, when 
one has your genius...” they all say. My genius! 
When you consider that in the ministries, at the ceme- 
teries, everywhere, a mere Saint-Marceau has the ad- 
vantage of me! You'll even see Bartholomé himself 
some day ... Do you think Clémenceau would have 
made me begin his bust over again fourteen times if I 
had belonged to the Institute?’ 

At this juncture little Claude Renoir got up abruptly 
from the table and exclaimed: “Zut! I’m going to 
miss the ants again.” And, paying no attention to a 
“Will you hush, Clauder” from his mother, he planted 
himself with his hands in his pockets in front of Rodin. 

“Monsieur Rodin, won’t you come to see the ants at 
work?” ; 

“What a little goose!” said Madame Renoir, while 
Claude, without waiting for Rodin to answer, ran out 

208 





LUNCHEON WITH RODIN 
of doors. “He’s thirteen years old and he still spends 
his time watching the ants.” 

Rodin: Atthirteen, Michael Angelo had already given 
great promise; and | did my first modelling at the same 
age. What a difficult thing sculpture is! Of course 
there have been great painters in every period, but is it 
really any wonder that sculpture should have fallen into 
decay by the time I came along? 

Renoir (to Rodin): Vollard showed me some extraor- 
dinary reproductions of your water-colours. 

Rodin: | did them with the help of Clot. When he 
is gone, lithography will be a lost art. But Clot has an 
annoying sense of humour. The other day I left him 
alone in the studio, and when I came back he had 
taken all my medals from their box and had pinned 
them all over his coat. There are some things that 
ought not to be trifled with. 


Madame Renoir: Do you like flowers, Monsieur 
Rodin?p 

Rodin: | love them! Mirbeau once told me about 
a chrysanthemum of a unique golden brown which 
had been substituted for the evergreen in the mortuary 
chamber of Princess X. And I recently had the oppor- 
tunity of seeing an exceedingly rare carnation at the 
house of Viscountess Z.: it was black as ink and had 
a very bad odour. 

Madame Renoir: There are no rare flowers here, 
but the garden is very pretty nevertheless. Look at the 
daisies over there by the window next to the mimosa! 
My husband has a preference for common flowers. 

209 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 

Rodin: Like Mallarmé! There was an artist with 
an exquisite style! Yet I have seen him carried away 
by a bouquet of mere meadow flowers. 

Renoir: Speaking of Mallarmé, Madame Morizot 
said to him one day when he was reading one of his 
poems: “Come, Mallarmé, why don’t you write down 
to your cook, just for oncer”’ 

“But I wouldn’t write in any other way for my 
cook,” he answered. 

Renoir continued: Even though certain of Mal- 
larmé’s poems are beyond my comprehension, I realize 
what an exquisite and original person he was! I re- 
member the simplicity with which he told about a 
certain Negro pupil at the school where he taught 
English: 

“IT often send him to the board to write in chalk, 
and you can’t imagine the voluptuous sensation I get 
when I see that black express himself in white!” 

“Let us take our coffee in the garden under the rose- 
bushes,” suggested Madame Renoir. 

“But what about my portrait?” said Rodin. Then, 
taking a large gold watch from his vest pocket, he said: 
“It is five minutes to two. The Countess’s motor is to 
come for me at three o'clock sharp, and my secretary 
informed me this morning that I would not have another 
minute to spare for the rest of my stay in the Midi.” 

“Quick, then,’ said Renoir. “Take me up to the 
studio. Vollard, will you fasten a sheet of paper on 
the board for mer” 

I waited for a little in the studio, for I was curious to 
see how Rodin would pose. But I was not obliged to 

210 


LUNCHEON WITH RODIN 


leave the room, for Renoir did not object to the presence 
of others while he was at work. Once Rodin was seated, 
he remained as motionless as the Rodin in the Grévin 
Museum. At ten minutes to three, Renoir put down his 
pencil and asked for a cigarette; the portrait was 
finished. 

“T still have ten minutes left,’ said Rodin. “TI will 
have time to see the garden.” But at that moment a 
knock was heard and the footman appeared at the studio 
door. 

“Madame la Comtesse’s motor is awaiting the 
Master.” 

Then Rodin turned to Madame Renoir, who had just 
come in, and said: “If I ever come back to the Midi, 
I shall ask you to show me your garden. I love Nature 


99 


SO. 


I went downstairs with the great sculptor. The 
chauffeur was cranking the machine but could not start 
the motor. 

“The Master will have to wait about a quarter of an 
hour,’ said the footman. 

Rodin: A quarter of an hour. Then I'll have time 
to see the garden after all. That will please Madame 
Renoir. (Then, looking down at his varnished boots, 
he shook his head.) But, on second thought, there’s 
nothing remarkable about flowers you can see along 
any railroad track. 

It occurred to me to profit by this unexpected téte-a- 
téte by seeking out some new aspects of Rodin’s per- 

211 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 
sonality. So I began: How do you plan out your 
work, Master? 

Rodin: 1 depend on inspiration. 

V.: What time is your brain most active for creative 
work? Between meals or right after eating? 

Rodin: My mind works with the same facility at all 
times, and except for a little nap... 

V.: When do you take your napP | 

Rodin: After lunch. I follow the advice of my 
physician in that. One day he pointed to my cat, who 
had gone to sleep after drinking her bowl of milk, and 
said: “You ought to emulate the animals.” 

V.: 1 do not remember ever having read a descrip- 
tion of your bedroom. That is a subject to tempt the 
pens of our best journalists. What is your bed likeP 
Is it antique or modernr 

Rodin: My bed is nothing special. If I were to 
sleep in an antique or a period bed, I should be afraid 
of becoming too much attached to it. But I keep a bit 
of art in my bedroom, for I feel an absolute need for 
a little beauty upon which to rest my eyes. As a matter 
of fact, I have one of my Burghers of Calais there at 
present. 

V.: When you take your nap, are you dressed or 
not? 

Rodin: Always completely dressed. Even if I 
should only remove my collar, I would be tempted to 
take things too easy; an artist lives all too short a life, 
as it Is. 

V.: Do you go to sleep easily? 

212 


LUNCHEON WITH RODIN 


Rodin: Very easily—unless some theme is gestating 
in my mind. 

V.: They say that one can get to sleep readily by 
fixing one’s eyes on some shining object. 

Rodin: The Orientals contemplate their navels. 
But I have a music-box near my bed which was pre- 
sented to me by one of my lady admirers from New 
York. ‘When sleep does not come, I just press a button 
on the cover and in a second I am off like a child. 

V.: Do you like music? 

Rodin: 1 adore Wagner. The other day I was dis- 
cussing music with Saint-Saéns and some friends. | 
stood up staunchly for Wagner. One must have the 
courage of one’s convictions, you know. 

V.: I do not know Saint-Saéns’ music, but I have 
heard that he owes a great deal to Wagner. What 
brought about his ferocious hatred for his musical 
progenitor? 

Rodin: It is only the truly individual artist who 
does not turn against the master from whom he re- 
ceived his training. Have you ever heard me speak ill 
of the Greeks?’ 

V.: I have not asked you, Master, what name you 
would like posterity to know you by. 

Rodin (with the modesty characteristic of great men): 
That is not for me to say. I might tell you, however, 
that at my last exhibition in Buenos Ayres, all the 
papers there called me the Victor Hugo of Sculpture. 
Victor Hugo! There was a man surrounded with true 
friends who were solicitous of their master’s glory. 

213 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 
“The towers of Notre Dame form the H of his name.” ® 

Not one of all the people who make so much over me, 
would ever conceive of anything like that for me! 
Think of the glory of having your name linked for 
eternity with Notre Dame! 

The chauffeur had finally come to terms with his 
motor. 

“The Master may start when he wishes,” said the 
footman. 

V: (while Rodin was settling himself in the auto- 
mobile): One last word, Master. In case you do not 
leave an epitaph, have you made arrangements for the 
place where you are to be buried? 

Rodin: Just a hole in the garden; I have always 
been a simple man. But (here with a flattened hand 
he made the gesture of decapitating something) there 
are to be no priests. . . . If there were, I would not be 
a true heir of the Revolution, “a son of the Twentieth 
Century,” as my good friend Frantz Jourdain said... . 

The car moved forward. The face of the great artist 
was framed in the window. 

“I have no fear of the devil!” he cried. 


3 Vacquerie. 


214 


UAHLVA ONIdsaa Ts 








= 


CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE 
ARTISTS OF FORMER DAYS 


AFTER Rodin’s departure, I found Renoir in his studio 
with an album on his knees. 

Renoir: What do you think of my fire-place? 
There’s not too much sham about it, is there? It zs 
a bit modern. I found the model for it in this album, 
which | bought from a dealer in Paris, in Rue Bonaparte. 
There are all sorts of period motifs in it, from the most 
complicated ornaments to the most ordinary moulding. 

Vollard: You like things of the past, don’t your 

R.; There are plenty of people who like the new; 
I prefer the old. I like old frescoes, ancient pottery, 
and tapestries that show the patina of time. I use the 
word advisedly, for the most important thing is that a 
work of art be able to carry this patina. Only fine 
things can stand the test. New things weary me, and 
when I go to the Luxembourg and see that conglomera- 
tion of glistening white statues, all of them in strained 
violent attitudes, I feel like running away for fear of be- 
ing kicked or punched! When J still had the use of my 
legs, | found nothing more restful than to walk through 
the rooms of the Louvre. It was like meeting old friends 
in whom I was always finding new and charming 
qualities. 

215 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


V.: Do you refuse to admit that there has been any 
progress in the art of painting? 

R.: Progress in painting? No, I cannot see any. 
No progress in ideas, nor any in technique, either. I 
once tried to change the yellow on my palette; the result 
was that I floundered about for ten years and then came 


back to the same one I used before. . . . On the whole, 
the modern palette is the same as the one used by the 
artists of Pompeii . . . down to Poussin, Corot and 


Cézanne; | mean that it has not been enriched. The 
ancients used earths, ochres, and ivory-black—you can 
do anything with that palette. Other tones have been 
added, of course, but we could easily do without them. 
I have told you, haven’t I, about the great discovery 
people thought had been made by substituting blue and 
red for black? But it doesn’t come anywhere near 
giving you the richness of ivory-black! With a simple 
palette the ancients painted as well as the moderns 
(one must be polite to one’s contemporaries) and their 
work is chemically more permanent. 

V.: But if the painter cannot reasonably hope to 
improve his palette 

R.: What is there left for him to doP He should 
strengthen and perfect his métier, untiringly, but he can 
only do that with the help of tradition. To-day every- 
body has genius, that goes without saying; but one 
thing is certain: nobody knows how to draw a hand 
any more, and none of us know our craft. The ancients 
were able to produce that marvellous surface quality 
and those limpid colours, the secret of which we are 
still vainly hunting for, because they had a thorough 

216 





ARTISTS OF FORMER DAYS 


knowledge of their craft. I am very much afraid that 
modern theories will not discover it for us. 

But, although craftsmanship is the foundation of art, 
it is not everything. There is another aspect of the art 
of the ancients which makes it beautiful: it is that 
serenity one never wearies of, that makes us feel that 
their work is eternal. Serenity was within themselves; 
it came not only from the nature of their simple and 
tranquil lives, but from their religious faith. They were 
conscious of their frailty, and in their triumphs as well 
as their-failures, they associated the spirit of divinity 
with all that they did. For them, God was always 
present; man did not count. With the Greeks it was 
Apollo or Minerva; the painters of Giotto’s time had a 
heavenly protector too. Their works have that aspect 
of gentle serenity which gives them their profound 
charm and makes them immortal. But man, in his 
modern pride, has chosen to reject this partnership, 
because it belittles himself in his own eyes. He has 
driven out God, and, in so doing, he has driven out 
happiness too. 

The painters of those enviable days had their faults, 
of course ... happily for them. But when you see 
how the freshness of their work has endured down the 
centuries, you are blind to anything but their qualities. 
I love to caress those beautiful marbles, and touch the 
marvelous impasto of their paintings; I cannot express 
the joy it gives me. 

For several centuries there was keen competition in 
France in taste and imagination; chateaux rose from 
the soil, the bronzes, the pottery, the tapestries of that 

217 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


time had a magical beauty; everyone vied with his 
neighbour in contributing to the richness of France with 
clay, wood, iron, or marble. In this country of ours 
everything was beautiful up to the end of the eighteenth 
century, from the chateaux down to the humblest cot- 
tage. You have only to see the albums in the Trocadero 
Museum to get an idea of the vigour of those artists, 
of their firmness of design in the smallest detail: even 
a bolt, or the knob of a door. Those people fortunately 
were not working for any Salon! 

The harm that the Salon does is incredible! Did you 
hear about the fond mother who said to Bailby: “My 
son has caught the autumn Salon manner’? Wasn't it 
you, Vollard, who told me that Matisse had been refused 
at the Autumn Salon? It’s curious how people are 
positively repelled by real painter qualities in a picture. 
Rousseau, the Douanier, must make their flesh creep! 
That Scene from Prehistoric Times of his, with the man 
right in the middle rigged out in a department-store suit 
and carrying a gun! But all that aside, must a picture 
have harmonious colours to be enjoyable? Must it be 
a subject that you can understand? What a lovely 
tone there is in that Rousseau! Do you remember the 
nude woman on the wall opposite the hunter? I am 
sure Ingres himself would not have disliked that! 

V.: How did it happen that the artisans of the past 
disappeared all at oncer 

R.: You mean how did the change come so sud- 
denly? A cabinet-maker explained it to me one day 
without realizing it. ‘I make the chair legs,” he said; 
“someone else makes the back; another puts them to- 

218 





RENOIR IN HIS 78th YEAR 





ARTISTS OF FORMER DAYS 


gether; but there isn’t one of us who knows how to make 
a complete chair.” 

There is the whole secret! The worker cannot enjoy 
the result of his work any more, so he has lost all taste 
for the job. He used to forge the iron himself, make 
his own pottery, his own furniture; he knew how to 
handle wood, stone, and marble. Now he is the poor 
slave who toils only for his crust of bread, he has no 
ideals, his head is crammed continually with a mass of 
ideas foreign to his task. Above all, he has no love for 
the shop where he works, for nobody sings or laughs 
there any more. The long and short of it is that the 
workman has been killed by progress and science. 

Is there a power that can check this torrent which 
is submerging us? It is a universal folly; nothing can 
stop it; and happiness can only be restored to us through 
work; but the work that makes for happiness is the 
slow labour of the hand. 


Will we ever see a return to tradition? We must 
hope for it, but not count on it too much. Since the 
whirlwind of the Revolution passed and withered 
everything, we have no more pottery-makers nor join- 
ers nor foundrymen, nor architects, nor sculptors. By 
the merest chance there are a few painters left: they 
are like seeds scattered by chance in an abandoned 
field; they take root in spite of everything. 

Open the window, Vollard, and let the sun into the 
studio. Do you see that clump of roses near the pump? 
Wouldn’t a Maillol look well there? One day Jeanne 


1 See appendix I, F. 
219 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 

Baudot took me to Marly to see Maillol. We found 
him at work on a statue in his garden. He searched 
out the form without the slightest preparation. It was 
the first time I had ever seen a sculptor work that way. 
Other people think they are coming near to the antique 
by copying it; Maillol, without borrowing anything 
from the ancients, is so close to them that, as I watched 
the stone grow under his hands, I began unconsciously 
to look about for olive-trees; I felt almost as if I had 
been carried away to Greece. 


220 


CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX 
THE LAST YEARS 


A FEw days after Rodin’s visit, my portrait was almost 
finished. “Another short sitting,’ said Renoir, “and 
I shall be through.” But he could not give me the 
sitting until later, because he was even busier at Cagnes 
than in Paris; in the country, when the weather was 
good, he liked to work out of doors as much as possible. 
At Essoyes, where there were almost no automobiles, he 
went out in his wheel-chair along the road, or by the 
rivers edge. At Cagnes, which is overrun with automo- 
biles, he had himself carried in an arm-chair to various 
points on his property, to the patch of rose-bushes, the 
plots full of mandarin and orange-trees, the grape-vines, 
the Terrain Fayard with its medlar-trees from Japan, 
the cherry-orchard, and, dominating Les Collettes, the 
olive-trees all in silver. 
_ “T have the right now to idle a little,” Renoir liked 
to say. From his care-free wanderings came many ex- 
traordinary landscape sketches; for it goes without say- 
ing that the model always followed with the colour-box. 
While he was doing the portrait of Madame de 
Galéa, which required fifty or more sittings and which 
interested him to such an extent that he kept at it 
without interruption up to the end, the weather was ex- 
1Renoir did still another portrait of me for which I posed 
in a toreador’s costume. (Essoyes, 1917.) 


oul 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


ceptionally hot, and he remarked one day: “I pay 
dearly for the pleasure I get from this canvas; but it is 
so satisfying to give in entirely to the sheer pleasure 
of painting.” | 

And then when the weather began to grow cold and 
his goatskin jacket was not a sufficient protection for 
work out of doors, he had his motor-car to fall back 
on. Antibes especially had an irresistible attraction 
for him. When he went round the Corniche, and the 
neighbouring hills, the sweet penetrating atmosphere 
gave him an ever-renewing sensation of tranquillity. 

“I must stay here at least two months more and 
paint!” he cried one day when particularly intoxicated 
by the charm of the landscape. And, quite forgetting 
that it was necessary for him to live in a special “in- 
cubator’ house on account of his rheumatism, he or- 
dered the chauffeur to stop every time he saw “Villa 
fo let 

The doctor himself advised Renoir to be out of doors 
as much as possible. “Nothing is better for cleansing 
the lungs than plenty of fresh air,” he said to his patient. 
Whenever the doctor ordered something to his liking, 
Renoir would follow the prescription to the letter. 

One day the family had planned to go to Nice to eat 
a bowl of bouillabaisse; it was raining in torrents, but 
Renoir insisted: “Bah! The doctor said that | 
breathe better out of doors than in the house. Here I 
am, past seventy-five years old, and I don't intend be- 
ing ordered about like a child any more. Now send for 
the car!” 

Baia 


THE LAST YEARS 


When Renoir bought Les Collettes, he did not at first 
have a motor-road built to the house. His wife would 
roll his wheel-chair to the bottom of the hill, and Renoir 
would be lifted in and out of the car in an arm-chair. 
“It’s a little inconvenient perhaps,’ he would say, 
“but the people who like me for myself will take the 
trouble to come to see me; as for the rest, the fence 
ought to be high enough to stop them.” 

But when the Parisian arrives in the Midi, he is soon 
so bored that he is ready to climb any fence, no matter 
how high, just to kill time. As soon as Renoir had 
moved in at Les Collettes, the whole swarm of faithful 
bores from Paris descended upon him, with many new 
members to boot. 

I recall the day I saw Renoir under the big lime-tree 
in the garden, with a long stick in his hand, dictating 
volumes to the sculptor who was executing his Venus 
Victorious.? 

“T’m at my statue at last! With this fine weather, I 
will be able to work out of doors all afternoon!” 

“If you’re not interrupted,” I suggested. 

“So far as that goes, I’d like to see anyone with 
nerve enough to...’ MHe had not finished his sen- 
tence, when an automobile drove up, bringing three 
strange ladies. 

“The porter at the Hotel du Palais at Nice,” one of 


2It is not generally known that Renoir produced considerable 
sculpture in his lifetime. Practically all of it was done after his 
hands had become crippled, and hence was executed by an assistant, 
M. Guino, at his dictation. (Trans. Note.) 
223 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


them explained, “told us that we could see Renoir’s 
studio at Cagnes——’ 

Another of the visitors struck in, trying to be agree- 
able: “But if the Master is busy, we can wait a bit.” 

Renoir was working away, when other visitors ar- 
rived: Monsieur Z., a seed merchant, accompanied by 
a young woman. By this time Renoir had given 
up trying to work. One of the three ladies from Nice 
remarked that she had a literary and artistic circle at 
Paris. “If the Master would like to come to one of 
my days,” she said, “I could arrange a little talk on 
painting beforehand.” 

“Why don’t you say something too?” said Monsieur 
Z.’s companion in his ear, but loud enough for me to 
overhear. 

“T’m trying to think of something...” He finally 
found it, and, turning to Renoir, he said: | 

“Master, if you did water-colours instead of oils, 
you'd have everything you need for preparing your 
colours, with all the rain that’s fallen the past week.” 

As Renoir wagged his head, he continued: “You 
must be sick of it in this hole!” 

Renoir: | have my painting... . 

Monsieur Z.: Painting! I know what that is; I 
paint myself... . 





Everyone had gone, and Renoir’s eyes were beginning 
to close, for a visit tired him more than a model posing. 
Just then the postman brought a letter. 

Renoir was reading it rather indifferently, when all 

224 





THE SPRING. (912) 





- 


THE LAST YEARS 


of a sudden he cried: “There’s a friend for you! He’s 
interested enough to ask if Jean’s dog has been found. 
. . . His daughters have started knitting a spread for 
me...’ Then his face darkened. “It’s not me he 
cares about, it’s my painting. He asks me about some 
pictures that he wants... .” 

And with a deep sadness in his voice, he went on: 

“T have arrived more definitely than any other 
painter during his lifetime; honours shower upon me 
from every side; artists pay me compliments on my 
work; there are many people to whom my position must 
seem enviable. . . . But I don’t seem to have a single 
real friend!” 


Renoir died at Cagnes on the 17th of December, 
1919. The following lines are taken from a letter to 
Monsieur Durand-Ruel from one of his sons: 


My father had been suffering from bronchial pneumonia which 
lasted two weeks. The last days of last month he seemed better, 
and had resumed his work, when suddenly, on the first of December, 
he fell quite ill. The doctor pronounced congestion of the lungs, 
rather less severe than a similar attack of the previous year. There 
Was no reason to expect any such sudden eventuality. The two 
last days he kept to his room, but did not stay in bed all the 
time. 

He would say from time to time: “‘I’m done for,” but without 
conviction, for three years before, he had said the same thing even 
more often. The constant care annoyed him a little, and he never 
ceased to make fun of it. 

Tuesday he went to bed at seven o’clock after quietly smoking a 
cigarette. He had wanted to draw a design for a vase, but nobody 
could find a pencil. At eight o’clock he suddenly went into a light 

225 


RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 


delirium. We were very much surprised at this, and we naturally 
became very uneasy. The delirium increased. The doctor came. 
Father was restless until midnight but did not suffer for a moment. 
He surely did not suspect that he was going to die. 

At midnight he became calmer and at two o'clock he breathed 


his last. 


226 


APPENDIX I 
A 


(See page 114.) “Renoir paints the caressing suppleness 
of woman, the disquieting charm of her coy glances, the 
archness of her smile, her pouting petulant graces, her feline 
charm. What sly soft eyes, what delicate, pert little noses 
and gaily smiling lips he paints! With an intuition for 
these things, Monsieur Renoir gives us eloquent portraits 
reflecting keen intellect... .” (Georges Lecomte, /mpres- 
sionist Art, pages 142-3.) 

Camille Mauclair reaches quite a different conclusion 
about the work of Renoir: ‘His women do not invite the 
beholder to look for intelligence; they are happy animals 
with stupid eyes; they have all the characteristics of the 
gentle brute... .” (Impressionism, page 124.) 

Monsieur Mauclair seeks an excuse for this lack of men- 
tality—and finds it: “Impressionism has spent one-half of 
its strength in proving to its adversaries that they were 
wrong, and the other half in inventing technical processes. 
It is not astonishing that it lacks intellectual depth.’ (Page 
203.) He deplores no less the fact that they have used 
“symphonies of magnificent colour for the portrayal of— 
nothing but boatmen, or a corner of a café. We have come,” 
he continues, “to a degree of complexity in our intellectual 
life which is no longer satisfied by these rudimentary themes.” 
(Page 207.) 

227 


APPENDIX I 
B 


(See page 186.) The man who buys a bad picture, on the 
other hand, buys it for love, not to make money. And his 
respect for the beloved object is sometimes tremendous. 
The owner of a bawdy-house has been known to sell all his 
worldly goods to save his Bouguereaux. 

Just the reverse is true abroad. Buying “bad” painting 
does not engender these noble sentiments; he who collects 
Bouguereau is an ordinary person, but if he turns to 
Impressionism, he becomes an accomplished “gentleman.” 
I used to know a man in Munich who was a great collector of 
Picot, Delaroche, Meissonier, and Bouguereau, and who had 
all the other artistic vices into the bargain. Recently | 
found him . . . well, changed in some intangible way ... 
more a man of the world—more self-confident. I interro- 
gated his wife discreetly. 

“Oh, Fritz buys Cézanne now,” she explained. 


C 


(See page 186.) Coignet was afraid that Bonnat might 
“turn out badly.” Madame de Z. is responsible for the fol- 
lowing anecdote about a dinner at which Coignet was among 
the guests. 

“All through dinner Coignet looked as if he had lost his 
last friend, so that finally his host urged him to unburden 
his mind. 

““T had a terrible dream last night, dear friends,’ Coignet 
said. ‘In my dream I beheld my favourite pupil, Léon 
Bonnat, making a drawing on the wall. “My boy,” I said 
to him, “the chimney is not straight. You must observe 
nature more closely.” And he replied: “That isn’t a 
chimney, it’s the portrait of an Italian girl.”’ 

228 


APPENDIX I 


“And Coignet turned to Abel de Pujol, whose anxious eyes 
were fixed on his face: 

““T tell you, my dear Pujol, modernism is threatening 
us. You should have seen Léon—and not so very long ago, 
either—putting pure vermilion on his canvas!’ ” 


D 


(See page 195.) When the Triennial Exhibition of 1919 
(the year of the painter’s death) took place, Renoir said to 
me: “Vollard, the Triennial is organizing an exhibit for 
America; they want something of mine. They have elected 
_ me their honorary president, you know! Would you attend 
to sending my statue of Venus for me?” 

When | arrived at the Grand Palais, one of the guardians 
told me that the Jury was in the midst of judging the 
sculpture. 

_I entered a room where three persons were seated behind 
a desk. They were weighing some bronzes on a pair of 
scales near by. 

“Fifty pounds.” 

“Accepted.” 

“Seventy pounds.” 

“Hold over.” 

“Eighty pounds.” 

“Rejected.” 

“How much does the Renoir weigh?” asked the three 
judges with one voice. 

“About three hundred and fifty pounds, I should say,” 
answered the weigher. 

“Three hundred and fifty pounds for one statue to be sent 
all the way to America!” cried one of the examiners. “Then 
five or six others within the limit of the maximum weight 
will have to be sacrificed.” 

229 


APPENDIX | 


As I was stealing out, I heard the president of the Jury 
say: 

“In the case of Monsieur Renoir, we will go as high as a 
hundred and fifty pounds. I shall take the responsibility 
upon myself.” And, holding up an admonitory finger, he 
added: “But don’t breathe a word of it; we have just 
refused a ‘hundred-and-forty-pounder’ by a member of the 
Institute!” 


E 


(See page 207.) The reader may be curious to know 
whether, on my return to Paris, | took advantage of the per- 
mission which had been so graciously given me. I did. At 
Rodin’s house I met Madame de Thébes, Monsieur Camille 
Flammarion, and Loie Fuller. 

“T’ve been making you wait for two years for your portrait, 
Baroness,” said Rodin, and, taking up a Phrygian bonnet, he 
put it on her head. “Some day | shall have to design a 
tribute to our Republic after you.” 

In the centre of the studio there was a statue wrapped 
in cloths. Rodin undid the wrappings and a nude woman in 
clay emerged. The Master then took up a hammer and 
chisel; he broke off the arms, the head and the legs. Then 
he stood in contemplation of the debris that littered the floor 
around him. 

“We must find titles for each piece,” he said. “For- 
tunately I am ingenious.” He picked up a piece of the 
torso. ‘How beautiful that is! What name shall we give 
to thatr”’ 

“Master,” I was bold enough to say, “why not call a head 
simply ‘head,’ a hand, ‘hand,’ a foot, ‘foot’? That group 
of nude women, for instance—how could you call it anything 
but Nudes?” 

230 


APPENDIX | 


Rodin: Perhaps; but it vulgarizes things to call them by 
their names. At first I named the group Evocation, and 
then, on maturer consideration, I chose Music. 

At this moment a woman entered with a baby in her 
arms. She threw herself weeping on Rodin’s knees. She 
had come from Siberia on foot to bring greetings to the 
Master from a group of exiled intellectuals. The child had 
been born to her en route. She held it out to Rodin, say- 
ing: “Bless him, Master!” 

Rodin put his hand on the child’s head. 

Just then another visitor arrived, and a truck carrying 
a bronze group stopped at the door; an Enlacement had 
been brought for the Master to authenticate. 

“What an admirable bronze!” Rodin exclaimed. 

The Visitor: 1 knew at once that it was genuine... . 

Rodin (sharply): No, it’s not an original. Anyone who 
knows anything about the technique can see right away from 
the finish of the grain that the mould was made from a 
plaster cast. But I gave them a bronze as a model. A 
large number of the Enlacement were to be cast for America, 
but plaster has the drawback of becoming soft after a certain 
number of copies have been made. 

Vollard: Then a work is genuine only when the artist 
has given his authorization, and false when he has not so 
authorized it? It might happen, then, that an imitation 
might be more beautiful than the genuine bronze. What 
is the poor collector to do if he wants a genuine one? 

Rodin: He would have to bring it tome. Only once have 
I made a mistake, and then it was absolutely impossible to 
tell. Somebody had informed me that he had seen a group 
of mine called Chaos in a dealer’s shop. I consulted my list 
of titles and did not find it. To ease my conscience, I went 
to examine the statue. I instituted a suit against them, and 


zai 


APPENDIX I 


finally my receipt was found. The trouble was that I had 
entitled it l’Envolée! 


One day I heard a sculptor, referring to these statues sold 
in pieces, call Rodin a dealer in “odds and ends.” I related 
this to an intimate friend of Rodin’s. He contended that 
the production of fragments was, on the contrary, proof of 
the liveliest artistic conscience. “The hand cannot move 
as quickly as the mind,” he said. “The Master’s mind is 
always ready for creation, and in order not to lose the least 
of his conceptions, he is obliged to abandon his big projects 
and express himself in smaller things which are later enlarged. 
Now it sometimes happens that the different parts of a 
statuette no longer make a good ensemble after the enlarge- 
ment, although they have lost nothing of their individual 
perfection of line and form.” 


F 


(See page 219.) Was not Renoir perhaps under a delusion 
in thinking that if the workingman could enjoy the result of 
his labour, he would begin to have a taste for his craft again’ 
One day I met a painter in a printing establishment who 
was having proofs pulled of some of his etchings for an 
album. 

“I shall put your name in the front,” he said to the 
workman. “You'll have something to show to your friends.” 

“The hell with that,’ the printer replied hostilely. 

Then, trying another tack, the artist said: ‘When the 
blacks come out well in a proof, it surely is a pleasure to 
the eye. When you are at your press, my friend...” 
He stopped, for the printer had given him an ugly look. 

But what happens in the rare cases when a workman has 
any real taste for his work? I know of an iron foundry 

232 


APPENDIX I 


where the proprietor made a point of providing his employés 
with work that “amused” them. One of the booths at a 
certain exposition in Anger was devoted to wrought-iron work 
from this foundry. When the committee on awards visited 
the booth, one of the members remarked what an amusing 
exhibit it was. Then another juror spoke up: “I'll wager 
they did those things for the fun of it. It doesn’t look like 
‘regular’ work.” (It will be recalled that Renoir had always 
been criticized for painting ‘‘for the fun of it.’’) 

The booth proved a success, nevertheless, and the owner 
of the foundry was encouraged to ask for State support. 
His standing was investigated, and the first question he was 
asked was: “Whom do you vote for?” 

He made no answer. 

“Then you must vote for the wrong party. And what 
union do you belong tor... 

“No answer? Well, that’s that; you vote wrong and you 
don’t belong to any union. And I’ll wager that your wife 
goes to church. That’s a good thing to know! So you 
mean to tell us that with that kind of a record you expect 
the State to subsidize your” 

The foundry-owner pointed out that all that had nothing 
to do with wrought-iron. 

- “Nothing to do with it! You'll see how much it has to do 
with it when the union comes around to raid your house 
some day!” 


233 


APPENDIX II 
LIST OF IMPORTANT WORKS 


In this list the translators have tried to present a small 
number of Renoir’s important works with the correct dates 
and the museums or collections in which they are to be found. 
The difficulties of the task will readily be seen when it is 
realized that his works in oil alone probably number over 
four thousand, and that comparatively few of them are 
dated. The artist himself was unable to give within five 
years the proper dates of some of his pictures, and there is a 
still wider discrepancy in the existing books on Renoir. 

A similar difficulty arises in giving accurately the collec- 
tions to which these pictures belong: they are constantly 
changing hands, and many of them are in the possession 
of dealers. Neither Renoir’s closest friends nor his family 
are able to give precise information, even on some of his 
important works. As this book goes to press, the Gangnat 
Collection, consisting of over one hundred and fifty paint- 
ings, goes up for public auction. 

It is hoped, however, that this brief list may serve to give 
an idea of the wide distribution of Renoir’s work, and show 
the importance of his activity over a long period of years. 

It will be noticed that there are fewer pictures listed in the 
last twenty years of his life than in the period before 1900. 
This must not be taken as indicating that the volume of his 
work fell off during this period. On the contrary, he painted 
uninterruptedly until a few days before his death. But from 

234 


APPENDIX II 


1900 on, the difficulty of placing the works becomes prac- 
tically insurmountable. A large percentage of his late 
pictures are still in the hands of dealers, and many of them 
are in the possession of his sons, and not as yet to be seen. 
Furthermore, the repetition of similar subjects and slight 
variations on a chosen theme become so frequent that a list 
of names would mean nothing without the aid of an elaborate 
catalogue of illustrations. Such a catalogue has. been in 
preparation for some time, but it has not appeared at this 
date. 

The years 1900-1919 inclusive have therefore been divided 
into four five-year periods. 


| 1861 
SLEEPING WOMAN. (G. Riviére Collection, Paris.) 


1863 
ESMERALDA. First Salon work. (Not extant.) 


1865 
MOTHER ANTHONY’S “CABARET.” (Hébrard Col- 
lection, Paris.) 


1866 


HUNTRESS NYMPH. (Bernheim-Jeune Collection, 
Paris. ) 


1867 
“LISA.” Exhibited at the Salon of 1867. (Folkwang Mu- 
seum, Hagen, Westphalia.) 


BOATING, CHATOU. (Gangnat Collection, Paris.) 
235 


APPENDIX I 
1868 


THE SISLEY, FAMILY. (Walroff-Richartz Museum, 
Cologne.) 

BOY WITH A CAT. (Edouard Arnhold Collection, 
Berlin.) 

PORTRAIT OF THE PAINTER BAZILLE (1869?). 
(Owned by the French State and destined for the 
Luxembourg Museum.) 


1869 
BOIS DE BOULOGNE, WINTER. 
PORTRAIT OF THE PAINTER’S FATHER. (Pierre 
Renoir Collection, Paris.) | 
“LISA.” Small full-length picture of the same model as the 
“Lisa” painted in 1867. (Josef Stransky Collection, 
New York.) 


1870 
ALGERIAN WOMAN. Exhibited in the Salon of 1870. 
(R. J. Edwards Collection, Boston.) 
THE PROMENADE. (Kochler Collection, Berlin.) 


1871 


PORTRAIT OF MADAME MAITRE. 

THE INFANTRY CAPTAIN. (Josef Stransky Collection, 
New York.) 

WOMAN IN BLACK. (Josef Stransky Collection, New 
York.) 

BREAKFAST. (Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pa.) 

PORTRAIT OF MLLE. LEGRAND. 


1872 
THE HAREM. (Durand-Ruel Collection, Paris.) 


236 


APPENDIX II 
PONT NEUF, PARIS. Figured at the Hazard sale, 1919. 


1873 


MONET PAINTING DAHLIAS. (Durand-Ruel Collec- 
tion, Paris.) 

THE SEINE AT ARGENTEUIL. (Durand-Ruel Collec- 
tion, Paris.) 

THE RIDE IN THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE. (Hamburg 
Museum. ) 


" 1874 

PORTRAIT OF SISLEY. (Coburn Collection, Chicago.) 

THE HENRIOT FAMILY. 

THE DANCING-GIRL. (Joseph E. Widener Collection, 
Philadelphia.) 

THE OPERA BOX: “La Loge.” (Durand-Ruel Col- 
lection, Paris.) A smaller replica, done much later, is 
in the Bernheim-Jeune Collection. 

THE PARISIENNE. (Formerly Theodore Duret Col- 
lection. ) 


| 1874-1877 
L’INGENUE. (Alphonse Kann Collection, Paris.) 
MONET AND HIS FAMILY. (Claude Monet Collection, 
Giverny. ) 


1875 


WOMEN SEATED. (Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pa.) 
PORTRAIT OF CLAUDE MONET. (Monet Collection, 
Giverny. ) 
YOUNG GIRL JUGGLERS, CIRQUE FERNANDO. 
(Palmer Collection, Art Institute of Chicago.) 
ear 


, APPENDIX I] 

WOMAN IN NEGLIGEE. (Barnes Foundation, Mer- 
ion, Pa.) 

WOMAN WITH A SHEPHERD’S STAFF. (Barnes 
Foundation, Merion, Pa.) 

GIRL WITH SKIPPING-ROPE. (Barnes Foundation, 
Merion, Pa.) 

“LE MOULIN DE LA GALETTE.” (Caillebotte Bequest, 
Luxembourg Museum, Paris.) A sketch is in the Co- 
burn Collection, Chicago. , 

THE SWING. (Caillebotte Bequest, Luxembourg Mu- 
seum, Paris.) Comprises portraits of Monet and G. 
Riviere. 

PORTRAIT OF CHOQUET. (Durand-Ruel Collection, 
Paris.) 

IN THE STUDIO. Portrait group including Cabaner, 
Pissarro, Cordey, G. Riviére, Lestringuéz. (Durand- 
Ruel Collection, Paris.) 

PORTRAIT OF MLLE. DURAND-RUEL AS A CHILD. 
(Durand-Ruel Collection, Paris.) 

THE SPRING. (Collection of the Prince of Wagram, 
Paris. ) 


1877 


AFTER THE CONCERT. (“La Sortie du  Conserva- 
toire.”) Originally purchased by Emmanuel Chabrier. 
NUDE WOMAN SURROUNDED BY CLOTHING. 
(Stchoukine Collection, Moscow.) A famous model 
called Nana posed for this picture. It was purchased 
from Renoir by the composer Emmanuel Chabrier; his 
family, however, did not consider it proper for the 
salon, and it was relegated to a small and little- 


frequented room. 
238 


APPENDIX II 


THE FIRST STEPS: MOTHER AND CHILD. (Pellerin 
Collection, Paris. 

PORTRAIT OF MLLE. SAMARY: bust. (Foyer des 
Artistes, Théatre Nationale Francais, Paris.) 


1878 


MADAME CHARPENTIER AND HER CHILDREN. 
Exhibited at the Salon of 1879. (Metropolitan Mu- 
seum, New York.) 

PORTRAIT OF MLLE. SAMARY: “full length. Salon of 
1879. (Morosoff Collection, Moscow.) 

LANDSCAPE, POURVILLE. (Barnes Foundation, Mer- 
ion, Pa.) 


1879 


MME. HENRIOT IN THE COSTUME OF A PAGE. 
(Collection of the Prince of Wagram, Paris.) 
GARDEN AT ESSAI, ALGERIA. (Durand-Ruel Collec- 
tion, Paris.) 
ARAB RIDING A CAMEL. (Durand-Ruel Collection, 
Paris.) 
ARABS AND DONKEYS. (Vollard Collection, Paris.) 
AFTER THE LUNCHEON. (Staedelsches _ Institut, 
: Frankfurt-am-Mein. ) 
FISHER-WOMEN AT BERNEVAL. (Durand-Ruel Col- 
lection, Paris.) 
CANOEISTS AT CHATOU. (Adolph Lewisohn Collec- 
tion, New York City.) 
THE WAVE. (Palmer Collection, Art Institute of Chi- 
cago.) 
1880 
PORTRAIT OF FOURNAISE. (Durand-Ruel Collection, 
Paris. ) | 
239 


APPENDIX II 


PORTRAIT OF MADAME PAPILLON. (Durand-Ruel 

: Collection, Paris. 

ALGERIAN WOMEN. Exhibited at the Salon of 1880. 

AT THE CONCERT. (Durand-Ruel Collection, Paris). 

THE SEINE AT CHATOU. (Museum of Fine Arts, Bos- 
ton, Mass.) 

GIRL WITH A CAT. (Durand-Ruel Collection, Paris.) 

PORTRAIT OF CEZANNE. Pastel. 

WOMAN WITH A CUP OF CHOCOLATE. Exhibited at 
the Salon of 1881. 


1881 
ON THE TERRACE. (Coburn Collection, Chicago, IIl.) 
PORTRAIT OF WAGNER. A replica of this portrait was 
painted about ten ‘years later for Monsieur Chéramy. 
MME. RENOIR AND SON. (Barnes Foundation, Mer- 
ion, Pa.) 

LUNCHEON OF THE BOATMEN AT BOUGIVAL. 
(Phillips Memorial Gallery, Washington, D. C.) 
THE RAILROAD BRIDGE AT CHATOU. (Luxem- 

bourg Museum, Paris.) 
STAIRWAY, ALGERIA. (Pierre Renoir Collection, 
Paris. ) 


1880-1881 
NUDE BATHERS: GUERNSEY. 

GRAND CANAL: VENICE. (Museum of Fine Arts, 
Boston, Mass.) | 
GARDEN AT SORRENTO WITH VESUVIUS IN THE 
DISTANCE. (Claude Renoir Collection, Paris.) 
FRUIT OF THE MIDI. (Ryerson Collection, Chicago.) 
240 


APPENDIX II 
1882 
PORTRAIT OF MLLE. DURAND-RUEL SEWING. 
(Durand-Ruel Collection, Paris.) 
MLLES. DURAND-RUEL IN THEGARDEN. (Durand- 
Ruel Collection, Paris.) 
OLD ARAB WOMAN. 


1883 


PORTRAIT OF MME. CLAPISSON. (Ryerson Collec- 
tion, Chicago.) | 

DANCE PANELS: THE DANCE IN THE COUNTRY; 
THE DANCE IN THE CITY. (Durand-Ruel Collec- 
tion, Paris.) 

MLLE. MANET WITH A CAT. (Ernest Rouart Col- 
lection, Paris.) 

UMBRELLAS. (National Gallery, London.) 

CHILD IN WHITE. (Ryerson Collection, Chicago.) 

WOMAN WITH A FAN. (Ryerson Collection, Chicago.) 

ALGERIAN GIRL, bead. (Coburn Collection, Chicago.) 

APPLES. (Coburn Collection, Chicago.) 

YOUNG GIRL WITH A PARASOL. (Barnes Founda- 
tion, Merion, Pa.) 

BOY IN SAILOR SUIT. (Barnes Foundation, Merion, 
Pa.) | 

TWO PANELS: FISHER-GIRL; FRUIT-VENDER. 
(Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pa.) 

1884 


THE BERARD CHILDREN. (National Gallery, Berlin.) 
PORTRAIT OF MLLE. BERARD. (Gangnat Collection, 
Paris.) 
WOMAN’S HEAD, profile. 
MADAME RENOIR AT THE GATE. (Durand-Ruel 
Collection, Paris.) 
241 


APPENDIX II 
1885 
WOMEN BATHING. — (1883-1885.)  (Jacques-Emile 
Blanche Collection, Paris.) 
BATHER SEATED. (Durand-Ruel Collection, Paris.) 
PORTRAIT OF MME. RENOIR. (Pierre Renoir Col- 
tion, Paris.) 


IN THE GARDEN. (Bernheim-Jeune Collection, Paris.) 


1886 

MOTHER NURSING HER CHILD: MME. RENOIR 
AND PIERRE. (Collection of the Prince of Wagram, 
Paris.) There are two replicas of this picture, one done 
at the same period, in the collection of Claude Renoir, 
and a second, much smaller, in the collection of Pierre 
Renoir, done in 1917. 

YOUNG GIRL WITH A ROSE. 


1888 


MOTHER AND CHILD. (Barnes Foundation, Merion, 
Pa.) This curious canvas is an anomaly. It is en- 
tirely different in bandling from all the rest of the 
painter's work. 

GIRL BATHING. (Rodin Museum, Paris.) 

DAUGHTERS OF CATULLE MENDES. (Collection of 
the Prince of Wagram, Paris.) 

BOY DRAWING, PIERRE RENOIR. 

LANDSCAPE WITH HARVESTER. (Barnes Founda- 
tion, Merion, Pa.) 

THE RED BOAT: ARGENTEUIL. (Barnes Founda- 
tion, Merion, Pa.) 


242 


APPENDIX II 
1889 
PORTRAIT OF MME. DE BONNIERES. (Vollard Col- 
lection, Paris.) 
LA TOILETTE. Pastel. (Durand-Ruel Collection, Paris.) 
BATTLEDORE AND SHUTTLECOCK. 
MONT SAINT VICTOIRE. (Barnes Foundation, Mer- 
ion, Pa.) 
THE APPLE-VENDER. (Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pa.) 
THE BEACH AT PORNIC. (Barbazanges_ Gallery, 
Paris. ). 
WOMAN, COW AND SHEEP. (Bernheim-Jeune Collec- 
tion, Paris.) 


189] 
WOMAN BATHING. 
PORTRAIT OF MME. MORISOT AND DAUGHTER. 
(Lapauze Collection, Paris.) 
THE PIANO LESSON, Pastel. (Adolph Lewisohn Col- 
lection, New York.) 


1892 

THE PIANO LESSON. There are two versions of this 
picture, one in the Luxembourg Museum, and the other 
in the collection of Pierre Renoir in Paris. 

BATHER SLEEPING BY THE SEA. 

THE YOUNG BATHER. (Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pa.) 

LANDSCAPE: ANTIBES. (Barnes Foundation, Mer- 
ion, Pa.) 


1893-1894 
CHILDREN PLAYING BALL. Pastel. 
STILL-LIFE WITH MELON. (Durand-Ruel Collection, 
Paris. ) | | 
243 


_ APPENDIX II 
THE SEA AT TREBOUL. 
LA TOILETTE. (Bernheim-Jeune Collection, Paris.) 


1895 
PORTRAIT OF THE CHILDREN OF M. CAILLE- 
BOTTE. 
YOUNG GIRL6& PUTTING FLOWERS IN THEIR 
HATS. (Martin A. Ryerson Collection, Chicago.) 
VIEW OF ESSOYES. (Durand-Ruel Collection, Paris.) | 


1896 


THE RENOIR FAMILY. (Claude Renoir Collection, 
Paris. ) 

PORTRAIT GROUP: JEAN RENOIR, GABRIELLE, 
AND LITTLE GIRL. (Pierre Renoir Collection, 
Paris.) 

GUITAR-PLAYER. 

BATHER ARRANGING HER HAIR. 

GIRL CARRYING A BASKET OF FLOWERS. (A. 
Barton Hepburn Collection, New York.) 


1897 


AFTER THE BATH. 

GUITAR-PLAYER. 

BATHER SLEEPING. (Formerly Dieterle Collection, 
Paris.) 

LA SOURCE. (Gallimard Collection, Paris.) 


1898-1899 
SPANISH GIRL WITH A GUITAR. 
AFTER THE BATH. (Bernheim-Jeune Collection, Paris.) 
JEAN RENOIR SEWING. (Pierre Renoir Collection, 
Paris. ) 
YVONNE AND JEAN. (Durand-Ruel Collection, Paris.) 
244 


APPENDIX II 


GRAPE GATHERERS. (Adolph Lewisohn Collection, 
New York City.) 


1900-1904 

VASE OF ROSES. 

BATHER AND MAID. (Bernheim-Jeune Collection, 
Paris. ) 

WOMEN EMBROIDERING. (Barnes Foundation, Mer- 
ion, Pa.) : 

VIEW OF CANNET. (Gangnat Collection, Paris.) 

JEANNE. ~ 

THE RHONE AND THE SAONE. Allegorical compo- 
sition. 

WOMAN FEEDING BABY: CLAUDE RENOIR. 
(Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pa.) 

WOMAN SLEEPING. (Gangnat Collection, Paris.) 

BATHER DRYING HERSELF. (Vollard Collection, 
Paris. ) 

RECLINING WOMAN WITH A ROSE. (Pierre Renoir 
Collection, Paris.) There is a variant of this done at 
the same period. 

THE PALM-TREE: CANNES. 

NURSE WITH CHILD IN HER ARMS: CLAUDE 
RENOIR. 1903. (Jean Renoir Collection, Mar- 
lotte. ) 

BOY WRITING: JEAN RENOIR. (Jean Renoir Col- 
lection, Marlotte.) 


1905-1909 
THE WRITING-LESSON. (Barnes Foundation, Merion, 
Pa.) 
PORTRAIT OF MADAME EDWARDS. (Sert Collec- 


tion, Paris.) 
245 


~ 
f \ 


i 


APPENDIX ay, 


FEMALE TORSO. (Collection of the Prince of Wagram, 
Paris.) 

CLAUDE AND THE TWO SERVANTS. (Gangnat Col- 
lection, Paris.) 

SELF-PORTRAIT; head. (Jean Renoir Collection, Paris.) 

WOMAN BATHING. (Bernheim-Jeune Collection, Paris.) 

PORTRAIT OF VOLLARD. (Vollard Collection, Paris. 

PORTRAIT OF EDMOND RENOIR. (Owned by Ed- 
mond Renoir.) 

WOUNDED BATHER. (Gangnat Collection, Paris.) 

LA TOILETTE: BATHER. (Pierre Renoir Collection, 
Paris. ) 

IN THE MEADOW. 1906. (Adolph Lewisohn Collec- 
tion, New York City.) 

THE RED  CLOWN?**CLAUDE* REN i 
(Pierre Renoir Collection, Paris.) 

BATHER DRYING HERSELF. 1908. (Barnes Founda- 
tion, Merion, Pa.) 

GABRIELLE ARISING. 1909. (Barnes Foundation, 
Merion, Pa.) 

HALF-LENGTH NUDE WITH HANDS CROSSED. 
1909. (Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pa.) 


1909-1914 
AFTER THE BATH. 1910. 
PSYCHE. 1911. (Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pa.) 
BATHER IN LANDSCAPE. 1910. (Barnes. Founda- 
tion, Merion, Pa.) 
PORTRAIT OF MME. DE GALEA. (Vollard Collection, 
Paris. ) 
RECLINING NUDE. 1911. (Barnes Foundation, Mer- 
ion, Pa.) | : 
ALGERIAN GIRL. 1910. (Barnes Foundation, Merion, 
Pa.) 
246 


APPENDIX II 


PORTRAIT OF MME. THURNEYSSEN AND HER 
DAUGHTER. (Thurneyssen Collection, Munich.) 
YOUNG SHEPHERD RESTING. (Thurneyssen Collec- 
tion, Munich.) 

PORTRAIT OF HENRI BERNSTEIN. (Vollard Collec- 
tion, Paris.) 

GABRIELLE AT THE MIRROR. 1910. (Bernheim- 
Jeune Collection, Paris.) 

JEAN RENOIR IN. HUNTING-COSTUME. 1910. 
(Jean Renoir Collection, Marlotte.) , 

PORTRAIT OF PAUL DURAND-RUEL. 1911. 
(Durand-Ruel Collection, Paris.) 

OLIVE-GROVE WITH FIGURES. 1912. (Barnes Foun- 
dation, Merion, Pa.) 

PORTRAIT OF MME. J. DURAND-RUEL. (Durand- 
Ruel Collection, Paris.) 

PORTRAIT OF MME. COLLONNA ROMANO. 1913. 
(Luxembourg Museum, Paris.) 

THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS. (Jean Renoir Collection, 
Marlotte.) 

MADAME RENOIR WITH A DOG. 1913. (Pierre 
Renoir Collection, Paris.) 

WOMAN DRESSING. (Vollard Collection, Paris.) 

THE CUP OF CHOCOLATE. 1912. (Barnes Founda- 
tion, Merion, Pa.) 

GARDEN AT CAGNES. 1912. (Gangnat Collection, 
Paris. ) 


ODALISQUE. 1914. (Gangnat Collection, Paris.) 


1915-1919 
PORTRAIT OF VOLLARD. (Vollard Collection, Paris.) 
YOUNG WOMAN READING. 1916. (Gangnat Collec- 


tion, Paris.) 
247 


APPENDIX II 


YOUNG WOMAN READING. 1916. (Gangnat Collec- 
tion, Paris.) 

GIRL IN A RED CORSAGE. 

NUDE RECLINING ON A DIVAN. 

TOREADOR WITH A ROSE: PORTRAIT OF VOL- 
LARD. (Vollard Collection, Paris.) 

THE PREGNANT WOMAN. 1917. 

WOMAN IN A MOUSSELINE DRESS. 1917. 

WOMAN ARRANGING FLOWERS. 1917. (Gangnat 
Collection, Paris.) 

PORTRAIT OF MME. HENRIOT. 1916. 

TWO NUDES RECLINING. Presented to the State at the 
wish of the painter by the Renoir family. (Luxem- 
bourg Museum, Paris.) 

COMPOSITION OF NUDES. (Jean Renoir Collection, 
Marlotte. ) 

BATHING GROUP. 1916. (Barnes Foundation, Mer- 
ion, Pa.) 

LAUNDRY-WOMEN BY THE RIVER. (Jean Renoir 
Collection, Marlotte.) 

PORTRAIT OF MME. JEAN RENOIR. 1918. (Barnes 

Foundation, Merion, Pa.) 


248 


A NOTE/ON THE TYPE IN 
WHICH THIS BOOK IS SET 


This book is set (on the Linotype) in Elzevir 
No. 3, a French Old Style. For the modern revival 
of this excellent face we are indebted to Gustave 
Mavyeur of Paris, who reproduced it in 1878, basing 
his designs, he says, on types used in a book which 
was printed by the Elzevirs at Leyden in 1634. 
The Elzevir family held a distinguished position as 
printers and publishers for more than a century, 
their best work appearing between about 1590 and 
1680. Although the Elzevirs were not themselves 
type founders, they utilized the services of the best 
type designers of their time, notably Van Dijk, 
Garamond, and Sanlecque. Many of their books 
were small, or, as we should say now, “pocket” 
editions, of the classics, and for these volumes they 
developed a type face which 1s open and readable 
but relatively narrow in body, although in no 
sense condensed, thus permitting a large amount of 
copy to be set in limited space without impairing 
legibility. 





SET UP, ELECTROTYPED, PRINTED AND 
BOUND BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, 
INC., BINGHAMTON, N. Y. * PAPER 

MANUFACTURED BY W. C. HAMIL= 
TON & SONS, MIQUON, PA., AND 
FURNISHED BY (WW. F.. ETH 
ERINGTON & CO., NEW YORK 








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